; / Uy.‘i /:',v/ ■; V V: V j '>'< V t ^ 



*' / '/j o '*» ; '' . ' <-'• > " A '5 >• 

'^1 '; ■t'*''- ^ " ''^ 

M •; Vj 'i 'i '/ * * \\ ‘ '^ 

'• '< '■'■'■■A.-. ./^. 




^ V 









/ ^ 

■'t '; 

• 4 


>• j • .• > r 5 * ‘ ^ « , . . / ,* • r_* r » • 

• . r:^,,"^'':-; ■; .-x • •■": 

W \ r.- ', . , . ' » • * ^ 'r^, 

\\A-^:Z'>'.'^:A’ \A ArA--:- 

' ‘ ' \ ' * *' y '' ' 

. f . y.' - ^ 


. V : ;■ 

■y/y-'- 




W'Jy’. ■,/. 

yyy; 


yy \ 

y fr * ' 
v'y 




rt.- . .. 

' '* i i “V <4 ^ 

i I 1 W i y 

’•fv V 1 /-A 


•V * r r-'# I 
'f*k ' ' %' ‘ W 4 

\ ^ 8 J • 


' ' ' y ■< 


V 

\ i 

\ I 




• > V 


\ 



V* ^ ^ 


ni 5 U'.'! 

- I V.*-. •.•-,«■*. ,••,♦• • * -( <- V. r iT *■ -**^r « ‘v ^ r «V • '-N ^ •: ''■" " ' ' 

• r ^ I" / ' ' . ' . - < V ■ V .'*...** / • #'i'» f < fy^ f ► • , r <• 

• v ' ' ■' ' • • '.L* yty ' » • '^rV 

'■ - • , ■,'>. ' V' ■ -■■•• : V' S '^;-'': '"/.:•■• ‘■■■•H -,---.>/^ 


• y'/u\ ’-'.^ 


y 




11 ^, 

■...^, 

'• "* v« 

11 




'4 


y 

r. • * 

r j 


f-u 

' / 



A 

'!» 

. 

W- 


4 > 

/ • *• 


■: 

yliik 

Ir?' 


'Aft % 

n' 

ih 

Ba 


» i 14 i 


hi 'y» 
41 3 ^|i 

Ai ifli 


m\ 



mm 

•t 

\'ly. * '> 

■mmm 

m 


. V 1 

I Wc * ‘ ' • - • • .: 


if 

fft! 

Jij 

ul'l 

ii^' 


W? 

'ft 















LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


Shelf S 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






. 1 » - • 


• V' 


• * 



'« * 




>• I 







• ' r^t 

!► -N • '.•-. 


\ .1 V 

.■».- • .*wr 

? ' 

# 

•i* 

^ itlC 


* » •*' 

-A P 4 *' 









■S ■ ■ 


•I4. 


• 4 *^ * r 

. lc , 



















» 

• * 
•i' 


: 

•. I 


. i \ 

m:. ':■ ■ 


f n 

» 

» * ♦ 






s 


V 

. s 


ri 



^.7 




• "fV’ ■ 

A'/'Vv 




4‘; \ 


. r 


*< 

i '\y 


{■ 


f 


, .» 


-'h- 

■ -I " 

1 - • » 1 


7 . 



I <' 




\>'VV» • 


■J. * . 

'■■ l' 7 -. 


.i^' 


\ 



,1 









r 

»• - •/ 

^ ■'. - - ,• A- ♦ . • i 

• "i « ' ■ • ■ w' , 


« 


i“' 






I .• 





•* # 



' 'A 

' t: / »• 

\ *» V* . ^ »**,•. ^ 

• .* • •**■ 


I 


# • 






^ ' *■ 






t • 


■V" ^ 


J 

» 

< ' •■ 


'<• 


\ 

■ 



✓ 


,v 




• < 


) •>. • • : 

% • < ' * I ' * • , 

• : itp 'v 

• ".i* •. . :••• 



-. . • *V 1 ' •J'V » 

■pi.-'- ‘Xr ■ 

■ r l; 


'-C 

^ ify- 


' •^* 




>/ ' 




.’4 


• 4 • * 

J • • 

•» • 


— ‘i 



^ ^■. ; --i./ •'■ •■ ■* ^ v'^ 

v_jisii : 7. . -, i'a,-avia»L_ ' ^ 


Sister Ridnour’s Sacrieice, 



BY 


MRS. CrFV>' 




IvDKR. 




WALDEN AND STOWE. 
NEW YORK: 

PHILLIPS AND HUNT. 


1883. 


^-L’\ 



Copyright by 
WALDEN & STOWE, 
1883 . 











•• >--!a 











*.*>;< • *'5- i ’ 

‘ r * V * ■ « ' V 


'Sfef-’; . .. 


9 ^ 






EVERAL of the articles which appear in 
this volume were originally given to the 
public in some of the leading periodicals 
of the Church, and elsewhere. Other articles 
are here published for the first time. The 
book is printed at the request of the officers 
of the Western Branch of the Woman’s For- 
eign Missionary Society, and is sent forth with 
the hope that it may, with the blessing of our 
Father, accomplish the object sought. 

C. F. W. 





V 


V 




t 







1 




\ t 

4 





s. 








I. Sister Eidxour’s Sacrifice, 

II. Sham and Pretense, 

III. Peas in the Shoes, 

IV. Modern Martyrdom, 

V. Footprints, 

VI. Sentimental Christianity, 

VII. OcR Best for the Master, 

VIII. God’s Wonderful Love, 

IX. Mission Work in Xenia, 

X. Born to Blush Unseen, 

XI. Adeline’s Christmas Gift, 

XII. Our Daughters, 

XIII. Monday and Sunday, 

XIV. A Schoolma’am’s Story, 

XV. A Story of To-day, 

XVI. After Many Days, 

XVII. Books for the Children, 

XVIII. The IMissionary Society at Nortonville, 

XIX. The Kingdom Within, 

XX. The Next Duty, 


9 

18 

25 

32 

46 

59 

67 

70 

75 

93 

99 

112 

123 

132 

158 

179 

203 

217 

234 

252 


1 . 
















Mk 






>4^ 


19 




ri. 


• < 


■■■-'r*?vC !5 >' ,.«- 


• If 






« 


‘1? 


'1 


• vV ^> /■'.••'■ 

# »»» 


'•^;X 


A ' 




» • I 




5 W ‘ '? . /f I ■ ;■ V 
Wfci •. ? .V ’ 




* f 








.f- 


. /,’-* ^.'S' ^. ^- • ' - V * H . >' O ■* 








»■> 


f*. 


f >- 


gj. vq 


'V- 




• ^ 




j 


1 


. .’r;' ^,. •«;. V 


>li 


IW 






• J 




4 « 


X 


X *• 


V''‘.> 


T.:. •••- ' 


%■*. 4 


-^-i 










» « 


. '••H' 

Y'id 

•;t - 






fi H ' .^V * 


'ii" 


^ * 




/J*s 


* > 


1 

R 


ev ■ 

'/:yX 

> 0 . V * i ;^,7 /'.' ■ ' 


* 4f 


ti 


♦ /. 


f * » 




I < 4.. * 






'Vii 




r - 


U f 


fQ 




% 


» > 


T’ 


^ - 




m 




9 






'^144 


.• ♦5# 


,*1 


X 






«*() 


:t%' 


i-J r 


«■«< 


- --/jv 


f* .•> 




t'.t 


T^X. 


0 


-**.v 




.V 1 #' 


y -■ 


J u 


ri^ 


r j1 






• r.v 






I 




Y * i • 


v .; VE - rC'*' 


» 




S . '. * 


«t< 










f H 




lUN . 


yv 










,; T Jtir . ^ . f , ^ 

s" 

* ,'. v ;‘ - - J 

, ;.. >1. , 

•^' ' i:. -' ’ •" 


i* 


!W 






iL 




.“.i 




Vf 


A 


»- * ' * ' -f. 

«( .,ii *^C». I 




»> 






M •< L_' V ’ 






I. 


i^oup s • ^etcn^ce. 


$ ISTER RIDNOUR was never very much in. 
terested in the cause of missions. For many 
years after uniting with the Church, when- 
ever it was announced that on a certain Sabbath 
the annual missionary sermon would be preached, 
a slight headache or a cloudy day would keep her 
at home. Her husband gave liberally to the cause, 
and if she thought any thing at all on the sub- 
ject, that fact eased her conscience and threw re- 
sponsibility from her shoulders. It must be con- 
fessed that there were times, if her attention was 
called to the matter, when her conscience gave her 
a thrust before she could turn her mind to some 
other subject, and at such times she would half 
promise herself to support some missionary in the 
field for a time, or, at least, educate an orphan for 
the work in heathen lands. 

One day she took up a paper, and a notice of a 
missionary meeting, held in a church where for 


10 


SISTEB BIDNOUE’S SACBIFICE. 


maDy years she had worshiped in her youth, at- 
tracted her attention. She probably would not 
have read the report if it had not been for the as- 
sociations connected with the Church. But she 
read the report, addresses, sermons, essays, and all. 
In one address, which was unusually interesting 
and pointed, there were five facts which clung to 
her mind, repeating themselves even against her 
will, until to get rid of them she resolved to act 
upon them. The five points were something as 
follows : 

1. It is not a question of how much we can do, 
but how much we will. 

2. What is most needed ; prayer, study of the 
Bible to find for ourselves what the divine re- 
quirement is, and study of the field. 

3. It costs less to bring an unsaved soul to 
Christ in heathen than in Christian lands. The 
same amount of money invested in salvation influ- 
ences will produce two and one-half times as much 
result in the actual number of souls converted in 
the foreign field as at home. 

4. The heathen are not far away. The money 
given the missionary cause to-day can be put in 
the hands of the missionary at the foot of the Him- 
alaya Mountains, fifteen hundred miles back from 
the coast, in twenty-four hours, and it takes no 
longer to travel from here to China, into the very 


SISTER RID NO UR'S SACRIFICE. 


11 


heart of heathendom, than it did fifty years ago to 
go from New York to Washington. 

5. The heathen are within easy reach of us ; 
they are the purchase of the Son of God. He 
said to us, “ Go preach the Gospel to every crea- 
ture.” How will you answer Him when he asks, 
“What hast thou done?” 

Mrs. Ridnour had the money to purchase a 
camel’s hair shawl, but was waiting for one that 
would better suit her fastidious taste than any then 
in the stores in her own city. And now that this 
subject of missions so pressed upon her heart and 
conscience, she thought to ease both, once for all, 
by sacrificing the shawl and giving the money to 
the cause of missions. To be sure she did not 
need the shawl, but it would be a sacrifice, never- 
theless, for, woman like, she had thought about the 
matter until her “heart was set” on having one. 
Still, how light the sacrifice, for, when the decis- 
ion was once made that she would do this act, she 
sent the money to the treasurer of the Woman’s 
Foreign Missionary Society, heartily praying that 
God’s blessing would go with it, and felt hardly a 
pang of regret at the loss of the shawl. 

Do not think that this sister was a less devoted 
Christian than the average of her sisters in the 
Church, because she felt so little interest in the 
cause of missions. She was a woman who loved 


12 


SISTER RIDNOUR’S SACRIFICE. 


the Church and worked for it with a never-flagging 
zeal. She labored faithfully in the ladies’ home 
mission societies. She was efficient in all aid societies, 
at every festival or hevee she always presided at the 
longest, the largest, and most beautifully arranged 
table in the hall, and was the hardest-worked 
woman on every such occasion. She was always 
on the committees for the different needs and char- 
ities of the city or the Church, and, lay it not 
against her, she was usually the prime mover in 
every donation party that preyed upon the pastor’s 
family. She was quite a worker in the Sabbath- 
school and her place was seldom vacant at the prayer- 
meeting. Instead of Sister Ridnour being a less zeal- 
ous Christian than her sisters, she was, in fact, rather 
more active in every good work, rather more faithful 
in all her Church duties than any of them all. 

The day after Sister Ridnour made the sacrifice 
of the shawl she thought over all these things about 
as we have thought them of her. She became 
really filled with self, with her influence, her work, 
her prayers, her sacrifices, her great faithfulness, 
and all the many good things which she had done 
in the course of her Christian life; they all rose in 
gigantic proportion before her. But this deed, an 
act she felt sure no other woman in the Church would 
have done, seemed so praiseworthy, that she was 
sure God must be well pleased with her. 


SISTI^E RIDNO UR'S SA ORIFICE. 


13 


The thought of being “accepted in the Beloved ” 
did not enter her mind. Why need one so far ad- 
vanced in the spiritual life as she, stop and ana- 
lyze her motives and desires like a Christian who 
had taken but a few steps on the King’s highway? 
8he could not stop to meditate ; she must do. And 
was n’t she doing ? Who worked more faithfully ? 

That night Sister Ridnour dreamed that she 
saw the great white throne and Him who sat upon 
it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled 
away; and there was found no place for them. 
And she saw the dead, small and great, stand 
before God; and the books were opened, and an- 
other book was opened, which is the book of 
life ; and the dead were judged out of those things 
which were written in the books, according to their 
works. 

Name after name was called, and the souls 
passed on and up, and on and down. At last 
Sister Bidnour’s name was called, and she dreamed 
that she responded, and the Judge placed her on 
the right hand, as she was sure she deserved to be. 
And as she stood there congratulating herself that 
all her sacrifices were over and she at last in the 
kingdom, the great Judge said, in a tone that made 
Sister Ridnour tremble, and every fiber of her 
being quiver with a dread such as when a mortal 
she had never experienced: “Step forth all who 


14 


SISTER RIDEOUR^S SACRIFICE. 


were saved through the influence of Caroline 
Ridnour.” 

Away back in the innumerable throng there 
moved one, and then another, and another, who 
came at last to the front and stood before Caroline 
Ridnour. All strangers to Sister Ridnour. Not 
only strangers, but all were foreigners ; people 
from some unknown clime, and to Sister Ridnour 
they seemed only dull, disagreeable, and repulsive 
creatures. She gazed over the throng among the 
faces she had known and loved nearly fifty years 
of her pilgrimage on earth, but not a person 
moved, not a face lighted up with an answering 
look of recognition ; not a ray of gratitude or trust 
from one soul present. 

‘ ‘ How many years were you a follower of the 
Lamb ? ” asked He who sat upon the throne. 

Tremblingly she replied, “Over thirty years, 
and all those years I worked in Church and 
Sabbath-school. O, Lord, I am sure I must have 
helped some soul. I tried to be faithful ; I sel- 
dom missed a sewing-circle ; I always worked the 
hardest at the festivals ; I led in all the donation 
parties ; I gave to all the local charities ; I never 
missed an evening in February when protracted 
meetings were held ; I was a teacher in the Sunday- 
school, and never absent except when it was too 
cold, or too warm, when it rained or wLen it 


SISTEM BIDNOUE’S SACRIFICE. 


15 


snowed, when I had a headache, or when I was 
out of town and Mrs. Kidnour sighed as she 
thought that perhaps she had not, after all, been 
working so much for God’s glory as for her own. 

“ Did what you liked, when it was convenient,” 
said the voice of the Judge, as full of tears as when 
he w;ept over Jerusalem. Turning to the multi- 
tude, he said, “ All who were ever under the influ- 
ence of Caroline Kidnour step forth.” 

In front of her came her day-school scholars, 
of those years when she first tried to walk in the 
Christian’s path, and before whom she was afraid 
to pray, and their children, and their children’s 
children — down, down, clear to the end of time ; 
all her Sunday-school scholars, with their husbands 
and their children and children’s children; the 
servants who had been in her family with their 
families and all their descendants ; all her neigh- 
bors, and the- poor in the Church ; her friends 
and acquaintances, with their families and loved 
ones; ail whom she had met in society; in her 
travels at home and in foreign lands — a multitude 
such as Sister Ridnour could not number — and her 
heart grew chill and cold. 

“ I was her neighbor fifteen years, and she 
never spoke to me on the subject in which she pro- 
fessed to feel most interest,” said one, turning to 
the Judge. 


SISTER RIDNOUR 8 SACRIFICE. 

I was at Sabbath-school the Sunday after my 
sister died. I wanted to be a Christian then, but 
Mrs. Eidnour was off on her Summer trip to the 
mountains, and before her return I lost all inter- 
est in the subject,” said a girl whose heart had al- 
w^ays seemed cold, and one whom Sister Eidnour 
had not particularly fancied. 

“ She told me it was useless to pray to the Vir- 
gin, but she never told me a better way,” said a 
faithful nurse, who had cared for all four of Mrs. 
Eidnour’s children. 

All her children — her own flesh and blood — her 
grandchildren, her grandchildren’s children and 
their children, a large company. Her oldest son, 
he whom his mother had really loved better than 
her own life, and to whom she raised her tearful 
eyes pleadingly as he said, “ My mother loved me, 
I know she did. She taught me to say prayers, 
but my Sabbath-school teacher taught me to pray 
and led me to Jesus.” 

Her daughter, whom she had indulged in every 
pleasure, even when her conscience had told her she 
was wrong in doing this, said, “ Mother was good 
to me in the wrong way. I have no hope of 
heaven. I did not train my children aright. My 
soul is lost.” 

Oh, the bitter wail of anguish that escaped 
Sister Eidnour’s lips. With a gasp of horror. Car- 


SISTER RIDNO UR’S SACRIFICE. 


17 


oline Ridnour cried out, pointing to the heathen 
from foreign lands, “Lord! Lord! are these all 
the garnered sheaves I bring with me? Is this 
the way I have done the work thou gavest me to 
do? Let me, I pray thee, return to earth; let 
me again have the opportunity to work for Jesus. 
Let me again be given the 'privilege to say to oth- 
ers, Ye must be born again ; let me again have the 
ability to sacrifice the luxuries of life, that I may 
win souls for whom Christ died. I can not, can 
not endure an eternity like this!” 

With a cry of agony, as a denial of the re- 
quest came from the lips of the Judge, Mrs. Rid- 
nour awoke. 


2 


11 . 


§)^<2tr^ • • ^v(ztzr)sz. 


“ WISH, Aaron, that you would purchase a 
r carriage like Mrs. Burbank’s. Her husband 
» bought it for her birthday present, and it 
cost ouly three hundred dollars. This old thing 
looks so shabby that when I meet Mrs. Burbank, 
or Mrs. Barton, or any of the ladies with whom I 
associate, I am exceedingly mortified j-” and Mrs. 
Mellon Iboked at the top and sides of the carriage 
in which they were riding with something quite 
like scorn in her pretty face. 

“A ‘new carriage,’ eh? Why, I hadn’t 
thought but this was good for several years yet,” 
replied her husband. “ A new carriage because 
some one else has one, Elinor?” 

“That is just like you, Aaron, to commence to 
poke among my motives. Why do n’t you say 
that I can have one? ” 

“ Why, I could n’t say yes to any thing that 
would take that amount of money just now with- 
out stopping to think over the matter,” and Mr. 

18 


SHAM AND PRETENSE. 


19 


Mellen looked around the carriage as his wife had 
done, but with a different result. “To tell you 
the truth, Elinor, if I could afford five hundred dol- 
lars for such a purpose just now, I should be loath 
to part with this old friend. We have taken a great 
deal of comfort in this carriage, and it yet looks 
really quite respectable. But, Elinor, a new one 
would be quite out of the question during these hard 
times,” and Mr. Mellen touched the horse with the 
whip, and for a few minutes they rode in silence. 

After awhile they reached the summit of the 
hill. The evening sunshine glimmered through 
the green of the trees, and stole through the boughs 
down to the grass, throwing the shadows and bits 
of golden light with a lavish hand. The gray rocks 
on an eastern hill, left bare by the washing of the 
waves ages ago, were flooded with the beauty of 
the evening light. But Mrs. Mellen did not see 
this picture hung before her, nor hear the sweet 
night sounds — the hushing of the wind, the cradle 
song of the birds, the sleepy monotone of the in- 
sects— or in any way show that she was touched by 
the tender charm of the sunset time. Her men- 
tal vision was filled with the desire of her heart, 
and her ears deaf to any tone but the last words 
of her husband, to which -she at length replied by 
first quoting his words : 

“‘Hard times!’ I do believe that a woman 


20 


SHAM AND PRETENSE. 


never asked for a new thing that her husband did 
not plead ‘ hard times/ I am sure that your busi- 
ness is much better than Mr. Burbank’s, and yet 
we do n’t begin to live in their style. Mrs. Bur- 
bank keeps two servants and a seamstress, and 
Mrs. Barton has three servants, besides having two 
new silks since I had my old gray. Last Winter 
she newly furnished her parlors, and had new car- 
pets for her chambers, and now they have a new 
carriage. I do think, Aaron, as economical as I 
am, I might have some wishes gratified. Say, 
dear, can ’t you let me have a carriage ? ” 

“I do believe she would carry a jury of eleven 
but not of twelve if her husband was the twelfth 
and Mr. Mellen looked at his wife, and smiled. 

“I believe you do equal the most contrary ju- 
ryman that ever lived,” replied his wife a little 
sharply, for she foresaw her hopes and plans of the 
last few weeks dashed to the ground by her hus- 
band’s indifference to the matter; but her courage 
was equal to a case of more importance than even 
this, and she added coaxingly, “You said some- 
thing about spending five hundred dollars. Now 
I ’d be perfectly satisfied with a three hundred dol- 
lar carriage, and I do n’t know but I would with 
one which costa little less, so there are two hundred 
which you need not spend.” 

“Doesn’t the little wife see that if she has a 


SHAM AND PRETENSE. 


21 


carriage of that style she must have a new gold- 
mounted harness so that things will match ? Then 
this horse is not quite gay enough for such a har- 
ness; the barn and carriage house would have to 
be altered for a new carriage and horse, and when 
that was painted up, the house would look dingy; 
if the outside of the house was renovated, the in- 
side would have to be, and it would end with new 
carpets and furniture, and all that sort of thing. 
I ’ve been there before, my lady, and a husband is 
always the one to blame if he gets caught in the 
same trap twice. Now, for the other side. We 
have a good family carriage and horses ; when you 
and I want our little, cosy ride all by ourselves, 
we want it whenever I am at leisure; sometimes it’s 
just after a rain and quite muddy, and sometimes 
the sun is hot and it is dusty. Now, if we had a 
new carriage we should not like to soil it or crack 
the paint, though we might not say that in words, 
but we should miss a great many pleasant times. 
For your own use I should be glad, Elinor, to get 
you a new carriage, but when I tell you that I 
ought not to purchase one now, your good sense 
will see the necessity of making the best of it.” 

Mrs. Mellon sat silent for a few minutes. She 
was one of those women who silently and deliber- 
ately plan upon a matter, and to give up a cherished 
plan seemed almost an impossibility. She saw the 


22 


SHAM AND PRETENSE. 


reasonableness of what her husband had said, but 
she also thought of what Mrs. Burbank had said 
the day before as they had fastened their horses at 
the posts in front of the home of a mutual ac- 
quaintance. “ My dear Mrs. Mellen, you ought to 
have a ‘birthday;’ just see what a lovely present 
my husband made me on my last ‘ birthday ! ’ I 
declare, I never before in all my life, have taken 
so much pleasure as I have with my new carriage.” 
And a remark from Mrs. Barton quite similar to 
the one Mrs. Burbank made, came also to her mind, 
and she felt quite miserable and unhappy. She 
wished that she had no fashionable friends, and 
that she was not so foolish as to care what they 
said, and wondered if there w’ere any place on 
earth where a lady could do just as she pleased, 
and yet be liked and respected for just what she 
'was and not for her house, her furniture, her 
clothes, or her surroundings. Her husband saw 
by her countenance the conflict going on in her 
mind, and he at last said good-naturedly, “ Speak, 
and let the worst be known.” 

She laughed in spite of her vexation, but she 
said : “It does seem strange to me how others get 
on so much faster than we do. It is only a few 
years since Mr. Burbank could n’t aflbrd his wife 
a new silk dress ; she kept only one servant, and 
they had no carriage at all. And it is just so 


SHAM AND PRETENSE. 


23 


witli the Bray tons and the Franklins. What you 
paid on that church debt would have bought me 
a splendid carriage and harness — and ever so much 
besides. I do think that we are not required ” 

“ Elinor !” said Mr. Mellen quickly. But he only 
spoke her name. He knew that if left to herself 
her own conscience would accuse her more keenly 
than would any -words of his. 

Slowly, but surely came the change in Elinor’s 
heart. She saw the firm, consistent principle that 
ruled her husband’s life; she saw herself always 
flying off* on some tangent. She thought of the 
many comforts and luxuries with which she was 
surrounded, and she realized how foolish was her 
desire to sacrifice one moment’s comfort from the 
home happiness for the sake of a flattering notice 
or remark from some fashionable acquaintance, for 
whom in her heart she entertained but little real 
respect. And the noble and pure impulses which 
come so often to every womanly woman crushed 
out the selfishness and self-love which had been 
reigning and ruling in her heart for weeks past. 

“The wave of meanness has gone over me, 
Aaron, and I ’m not washed away,” and she looked 
up with a smile so frank that her husband saw that 
every trace of unpleasantness had vanished. “ You 
do n’t know, however, how much I did want a 
carriage, but I seem to be some one else now, I care 


24 


SHAM AND PRETENSE. 


SO little for one. You shall not laugh at me, but I 
wanted it so that I actually prayed about it, and 
I was sure that God would answer my prayer.” 

“ He has answered it,” said her husband quietly. 
“He took away your desire for a selfish thiug; he 
has given you new purposes and aims, and though 
that was not what you expected, yet it was a beau- 
tiful answer.” 

Through the gathering twilight they rode in 
silence, each heart filled with loving thoughts of 
the other, and each anxious that the future should 
find them more willing to do what was right and 
true, regardless of the frowns or the nods of the 
world around them. 

As they passed the homes of the acquaintances 
of whom they had been speaking, Mr. Mellen said ; 
“ Would it help you to bear your disappointment 
any better if I should tell you that Messrs. Bur- 
bank and Barton are so involved in debt that un- 
less they receive speedy help they must go under?” 

Mrs. Mellen knew that her husband would not 
have told her this except for her good, and she 
pondered the subject, not only that evening, but 
for days; and she decided that for all time to 
come she would be a true woman, living a real 
life, and not one of mere sham and pretense. 


III. 




©es. 


next evening, after the decision made by 
ja Mr. Mellen in regard to the purchasing of a 
* new carriage, Elinor sat reading in the library 
at her husband’s table. Early in the evening he 
laid down his paper, stretched his arms, and laid 
his head back on his chair as though his day’s 
work was over. His wife looked up, and said: 
“O, Aaron, I wish you had stopped reading be- 
fore, I should have been so glad to have read 
aloud. I have been so interested in reading about 
the devotee who walked from Spain to Rome with 
peas in his shoes, suffering excruciating pain every 
step of the way. But another devotee, to whom 
the same penance was given, boiled the peas and 
walked in comfort. Did you know that the Ro- 
man Catholic believes in three kinds of penance? 
The secret, public, and solemn, and these are some- 
times self-imposed by the way of satisfaction for 
sin? How dreadful this seems to us who believe 
that Jesus paid all the debt we owe. But, Aaron, 
25 


26 


PEAS IN THE SHOES. 


do you know that I believe that lots of Christians 
are daily practicing all these sorts of penance 
greatly to the discomfort of their own souls, and 
the souls of husband, wife, or children?” 

Elinor waited a few minutes for her husband 
to reply, but he only looked at her and smiled, 
saying by his manner that he desired simply to be 
entertained by any thing wise or witty which she 
had to offer. Mrs. Mellen w^as so absorbed in her 
own thoughts that she failed to notice her hus- 
band’s manner, and after awhile began again on 
the same subject. 

“Wasn’t it dreadful, Aaron, for that poor 
heathen to walk all the way to Rome in such agony 
that he could think only of self? He did not see 
the beautiful country through which he passed, the 
waving fields, the stately forests, the view from 
the mountain top, the clear rivers, the golden 
sand, the green pastures. He saw only the peas 
in his shoes. He thought only o^ the peas in his 
shoes and his own poor suffering feet and limbs. 
Now, I think, Aaron, that I ’ve learned to boil 
the peas. I learned that a good while ago. I 
really can now trudge along in comfort, and how 
I do pity my friends who go limping along, groan- 
ing as they travel, in life’s pilgrimage. I’ve lots 
of times offered them fire and water, and recom- 
mended them to boil their peas, but though it does 


PEAS IN THE SHOES. 


27 


seem queer, they all seem to think that their peas 
can ’t be changed. There is Dr. Smith ! Why, 
Aaron, he wears a regular ‘ champion of England^ 
because Dr. Green has all the practice among the 
rich and influential, lives in a better house and 
drives a handsomer carriage. He is fretting about 
his luck, and groaning because his path is not just 
like Dr. Green’s. He mortgaged his house to get 
a better carriage and improve his grounds ; and 
repairs, repaints, and refurnishes. But the peas 
only multiply and grow harder. Only last Sunday 
the minister ofiered water and fire when he said, 
‘ The life-path is very much alike to us all, if we ’d 
only look up and not down, if we ’d only look out 
and not in, if we ’d only love our neighbor and 
not self. The same wise Father chooses for all his 
children, and he always chooses for us the safest 
path.’ I looked over to Dr. Smith, hoping he’d 
take that part of the sermon, but his countenance 
did n’t change, and I ’m afraid it made no impres- 
sion. I looked at his wife, but hardly expected 
she would think it could help her; she don’t take 
a very broad view of life. She sees that Mrs. 
Green has a fine house, good pictures, books, 
and statuary, is respected and sought after, and 
she puts wrong cause and effect together. She gets 
new furniture, repapers her parlors — has a ‘ dado’ — 
orders her pictures, then wonders why it makes so 


28 


PEAS IN THE SHOES. 


little difference with her position in society. To be 
sure, the poor soul has only one pea in her shoe, 
but that is because her shoe is so tight — yet that 
one pea hurts as though it were a vulgar peg. 

‘‘Mr. Brainard wears the little, round, blue Ken- 
tish pea, and, O, how sore they make him. You 
need n’t smile, Aaron, you know I am telling the 
truth. If he does n’t belong to our Church, I 
know ever so much about him. If Mr. Chalmers 
is made superintendent in the Sabbath-school, and 
Mr. Brainard has no office, his feet are one blister. 
If the minister does n’t consult him about his ser- 
mons and his Church-work, and does consult Mr. 
Blake, he is too lame to come to Church. If any 
public enterprise is started and he is not invited to 
be chairman and then made president, the peas are 
so painful that his face is full of contortions ; and 
what is the worst feature of the case, his wife is 
one of those inoffensive creatures who allows him 
to put the same peas in her shoes. Now, if a hus- 
band and wife will only wear different peas, the 
suffering is not so intense; but where the same 
pain is endured by both, it greatly affects even the 
feelings of the most careless spectator. If the wife 
thinks the Church is ‘all run down,’ the husband 
will think so too ; and if both turn their backs in 
disgust and sigh for the good old days when Bro. 
Sweet gave such heavenly sermons, nothing but a 


PEAS IN THE SHOES. 


29 


miracle will empty their shoes before they reach 
the end of the pilgrimage. If the husband thinks 
the sermons are not as intellectual as a two hundred 
dollar lecture, the wife will examine with a micro- 
scope, and find the same element lacking ; then both 
remain at home on the Sabbath, and nurse their 
wounds. When it comes to that it is quite probable 
the children will come home from Church limping, 
and the father aud mother both wonder ‘how the 
children happen to see things just as they are.* 
Do n’t you remember, Aaron, old Mr. Knight and 
his family ? They were of that sort.” 

Mrs. Mellen reached a vase of flowers on the 
table, turned them around, and touched a blossom 
here aud there caressingly. In a few minutes she 
commenced again, taking up the same topic. 

“There is Mrs. Peterson, her peas are good 
clothes. That is, she suffers because she can not 
have a hat like Mrs. St. John, a dress like one 
which Mrs. General Longside wears, diamond ear- 
rings like Mrs. Sumner, laces and jewelry like 
some one else, never once thinking of how little 
consequence such things are to one’s real happi- 
ness. And, Aaron, — I am almost ashamed to 
mention to you of my own sex — I have found out 
that Mrs. Gardner’s peas are a cheap seat under 
the gallery in the House of the Lord, and not 
having a speaking acquaintance with Mrs. Senator 


30 


PEAS IN THE SHOES. 


Broomcorn. Of course, it is too fimny, only it~is 
so sad ! Over at the Main Street Cliurcli there are 
ever so many who are wearing peas because their 
Church is not more aristocratic ! There would be 
some sense in wearing them, because it was not 
more holy ! For years I thought that Mrs. New- 
castle had all that one could desire, but one day 
I caught a glimpse of her heart, and found that 
‘ It all availeth me not so long as I see Mordecai 
sitting at the king’s gate,’ and her Mordecai is a 
neighbor who is beloved by every body— sweet Mrs. 
Adams — and of whom every one, rich and poor, 
high and low, has a kind word to speak. Mrs. 
Newcastle is actually uncomfortable because some 
one is loved more than she is ! I can ’t understand 
that feeling ; but then I never set myself up as a 
monument of amiability. I do n’t see what you 
are smiling over. If I do n’t profess great good- 
ness and am not a saint, yet, of the highest order, 
I do feel thankful that I cati walk along my pleas- 
ant life-path with plenty of room in my shoes for 
what few boiled peas I have there. Not that I 
particularly ought to rejoice over my own high 
state of grace, but I can ’t help feeling thankful 
for the light which I have when I look at and 
pity my poor, suffering brethren and sisters.” 

Mr. Mellen took his arms down from above his 
head, leaned forward a little, and with an amused 


PEAS IN THE SHOES. 


31 


look at his wife, said, ‘'It seems to me, Elinor, that 
I ’ve read somewhere something like w’hat you say. 
Was n’t there a man once who stood somewhere 
praying, ‘ I thank thee, O, Lord, that I am not 
like other men?’ But do you know, dear that I 
am glad to hear that you have boiled that conser- 
vatory that you have been so anxious about all 
Summer, ‘ a conservatory just like Mrs. Barton’s, 
you know ! ’ And I am glad that you have sen- 
sibly concluded that you can get along without a 
fountain on the front lawn, one, you know, ‘ with 
a statue holding an umbrella like the one I saw in 
Worcester.’ I suppose you have really emptied the 
carriage out of your shoes — good girl ! But how 
about a seal-skin cloak for next Winter that you 
have mentioned once or twice every day, Sundays 
not excepted, since last Christmas? ‘A cloak, 
you know, as good as the one Mr. Burgess bought 
his wife?’ I knew, Elinor, if you could only see 
your peas you would either empty them out, or 
boil them.” 

“O, Aaron how small you always contrive to 
make me feel. If there is one grace in this wide 
world which I ought to have, it is humility. You 
need n’t put on that smile again. ’T isn’t your 
fault if I have n’t it. -Do you think, Aaron, that 
after all I am like my poor ‘ suffering brethren and 
sisters?’ ” 


IV. 




WAS out to the sewing-circle this afternoon, 
|r Aaron,” said Mrs. Mellen, as she was sitting 
^ in the library, one evening, with her husband. 

“Is that so? Well, whose baby has a tooth? 
What Avoman has new boots ? Whose servant-girl 
has walked disorderly this time ? How many 
women Avere slaughtered, and who covered the 
dead Avith leaves?” 

“ You need n’t go on in any such strain, Aaron,” 
replied Mrs. Mellen, a little impatiently, to this 
raillery. “ It does seem as though men thought 
there Avas something brilliant and Avitty in speaking 
jeeringly of AA^oman’s Avork. I can ’t think that 
you really intend to speak in a disrespectful way 
of Avomen, for I know that you honor your mother 
with your Avhole heart, that you loA^e your sisters, 
and, as Mrs. Sikes AA^ould remark, ‘I have the in- 
surance to say that you make an idle of your wife.’ 
One of the by-laAvs of our society is, that there 
shall be no gossip. And, as for the silly or unim- 
32 


MODERN MARTYRDOM, 


33 


portant things said, I fancy that there are no more 
of that kind than are said by onr husbands when 
they meet in lodge, or are out at the club till after 
midnight. We ‘poor women’ were chosen from 
all the world to be the wives of men — of my hus- 
band and my husband’s friends — and if you did 
select simple creatures, that are not capable of 
talking sense when at a ‘ sewing-circle,’ I should 
think it would be a prudent matter to keep 
the fact to yourselves, and not toss it forth so 
lightly.” 

“ The wife of my bosom is no flatterer,” groaned 
Mr. Mellen, with a very subdued look upon his 
manly face. “She is not ‘the acquiescent little 
victim ’ we read about in ‘ Madame de Remusat.’ 
She does not cajole in all my faults and besetting 
sins. She does not fall before me and help me to 
becorje a domestic tyrant. Her skirts are clear 
of ever in the least being accessory to making me 
an egotist.” 

‘ ‘ I know you are sorry. I see it in your face. 
But, really, Aaron, I don’t see why you sliould 
talk as you do. I ’ve always felt as though you 
were superior to most of men. I do wish I 
had a thousand boys to train, instead of one 
splendid little fellow; I’d do my best to make 
every one reverence the name of woman next to 
that of his Maker. I hope, Aaron, you will not 
3 


34 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


allow yourself to speak that way again, even for 
the sake of the fun of stirring me up. But what 
I wanted to tell you was a remark that was made 
to-day, and which I can't get out of my head. 
There chanced to be a sudden hush in the conver- 
sation in the front parlor — we were at Dr. Green’s — 
when some one said, in a voice pitched in a high, 
sharp, nervous key, ‘ I can ’t be a consistent Chris- 
tian and work too hard, and I don’t believe that 
there are many women who can.’ The remark 
made me think of what your brother Fred said 
the other day, when I met him on the street and 
asked him about Henrietta. He said that she was 
‘ not in a very high state of grace ; in fact, was 
down by the cold streams of Babylon ; felt as 
though she was the chief of sinners ; ’ and he ran 
on in that sort of a way until 1 asked if she 
was not overworking. ‘ O no,’ he replied, ‘ she 
is having a rest. The kitchen-girl is gone, and 
she is not troubled any more about stained coffee- 
cups or broken china. That is a great relief to 
her. The woman who has ‘ tormented ’ her life 
out by doing such ‘ wretched sewing ’ has left, and 
Henrietta has ceased to dream about ruffles and 
stitches dancing together in the church parlor. 
She has dropped all outside work except the care 
of Trinity Church, which she feels always will rest 
on her shoulders. The dinners at the Girls’ Home, 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


35 


on Saturdays, she still superintends. Of course 
she meets with the Domestic Science Club twice a 
month ; goes to the Church sewing-circle ; could n’t 
give up her Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, 
if she had to be carried on her bed ; helps at the 
Union Dorcas every week, because there are so 
many poor this year. Then there is the Home for 
the Friendless, the Old Ladies’ Home, and the 
Orphan Asylum. She is supporting a little heathen 
girl in India, and of course must attend to the 
wants of her adopted child. She would feel that 
she was in danger of losing her soul if she stayed 
at home from prayer-meeting. She couldn’t give 
up the Beading Club, for the intellect must not 
grow dim from disuse. She has to attend the choir 
practice, and if she sings in the choir she must go 
to Choral Union, Monday evenings. No, I can’t 
think it is overwork. Better go down and see her, 
Elinor, and find out why she is so depressed.’ And 
he went off laughing. Of course, I knew that 
Fred was poking fun at his wife. It ’s a trait that 
runs in the family. But, after all, there was lots 
of truth in what he said. At the very sewing- 
circle to-day, where that woman said what I told 
yon, the women were huddled around a quilt, 
breaking their backs in putting together what they 
considered a ‘lovely’ thing of thirteen hundred 
little pieces of bright cloth. And when Mrs. Pru- 


86 


M ODERN MA R TYRD OM. 


dens heard the truthful remark of that sensible 
woman who found it impossible to live a consistent 
life and constantly overwork, she held up her 
hands in holy horror. Mrs. Upstart, with a 
shocked look, raised her eyes over her spectacles to 
Mrs. Alert, and some of the other ladies looked as 
though it had thundered from a cleartsky. This 
afternoon I was thinking it all over, and I won- 
dered if what made me impatient sometimes was n’t 
my overwork. You need n’t open your eyes. I 
do believe, Aaron, that you sometimes think I 
don’t have very much to do. Any woman who 
has three little children, and is a real, true mother, 
just has her hands full, even if she does have ‘ all 
things added.’ You needn’t hasten to tell me that 
you know I’m a good mother, etc., etc. I know 
how^you really feel toward me, but you do have 
the habit of looking unutterable things you do n^t 
feel. Now, this very afternoon, when I was think- 
ing over my ‘ upsetting ’ sin of impatience, a thing 
occurred which would have put a man out of sorts 
for the rest of the. day.” 

“I do wish, Elinor, you would not speak so 
slightingly of men as a class. I know you hon- 
ored your father, that you loved your brothers, 
and—” 

“ I was in the back parlor,” continued Mrs. 
Mellen, interrupting her husband with a pretense 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


37 


of great dignity, “ sewing on one of the baby’s 
dresses. The baby was asleep in her crib, and Ned 
and Mary were playing in the bedroom. I was 
wondering if I ever should be so consistent a Chris- 
,tian that I should not be daily losing my self-re- 
spect, of feel that I had degrad'ed myself in the 
eyes of my family. There was Ned ^nd Mary al- 
ready old enough to copy not only my actions but 
my words, and even the tone of my voice ; and if 
my earnest prayers for them are to be answered, I 
must, in a great degree, answer them myself. • I 
was sitting in a sort of heavenly rest, feeling that 
God would undertake for me ; that he would give 
me the wisdom which I so much needed, and all 
I had to do was to trust in him. Already I was 
dimly comprehending what was meant by a life of 
faith. I was already climbing the Delectable 
Mountains, and could ‘look away across the sea,’ 
when my meditations were interrupted by hearing 
Ned say, ‘Now, Mary, let me wear mamma’s best 
bonnet.’ 

‘“Why, children?’ I exclaimed, in any but 
dulcet tones, and going to them, said, ‘Why, you 
naughty little children!’ Oh, Aaron, here I 
tumbled right down from the mountain, not ‘into 
the highway toward the city,’ but over ‘ on the left 
hand,’ into the ‘ crooked lane ’ called ‘ Conceit.’ 
But how could I help it? There was one child 


38 


MODERN MA R TYRD OM. 


dressed in my best bonnet, real lace collar — old and 
tender — light gloves, and holding a dirty doll 
dressed in my best lace handkerchief. The other 
child had a delicate wrap wound around his head, 
a la Madame de Stael, and his neck upheld by one 
of your soiled collars, with a large doll dressed in 
a newly ironed ruffled pillow-case. These, our 
‘trustworthy children’ — who, I had felt in my 
heart, were the best children about meddling with 
what did not belong to them that earth could bring 
forward — these children had been to my wardrobe 
drawers, and taken the last things I should have 
chosen to have given them. Both children cried, 
and exclaimed, ‘I’m not naughty.’ Just here 
Hester came in from the kitchen, and said that we 
were ‘ out of Graham flour, and there were not 
eggs enough to mix up the batter for breakfast. 
The man had n’t brought the chickens for Sunday, 
and the lard jar was empty.’ You can’t think, 
Aaron, how for a few minutes I fretted and wor- 
ried. You know I’ve been feeling miserably for a 
few days, and had thrown ofl* care as much as was 
possible, but here was my load to take up again. I 
do n’t wonder that Jesus taught us to pray, ‘ Lead 
us not into temptation.’ He knew we could not 
endure. The resisting temptation may make strong 
characters, but, as a general thing, a woman can T 
resist very long, and that is why we particularly 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


39 


have need to ‘watch that we enter not.’ I do 
believe, Aaron, that nearly all the women who are 
fretful, fault-finding, and impatient — disgracing the 
name of Christian — are the overworked women of 
the world ; women who not only have the care of 
the home, the sewing, the entertaining of friends, 
the training of the children, but take upon their 
shoulders also the care of society and the Churches. 
No wonder that half the time the heavens seem to 
be brass, and that God has forgotten to be gracious. 
No wonder they seem to be drifting from God, in- 
stead of drawing nearer. No wonder that, when 
they kneel to pray, the thought of the unfinished 
sewing creeps in as they say ‘ Onr Father;’ that 
when they beseech him to draw nigh they sigh as 
they think of the undusted room, or an unfinished 
garment ; that, as their lips move in prayer, their 
thoughts wander ilnore and more, and at last they 
rise from their knees, not having even entered the 
outer court, or caught a breath of the incense 
w’afted from the holy of holies. 

If it is true that we must, as far as in us lies, 
answer our own prayers in regard to feeding the 
hungry, clothing the poor, being kind to the stran- 
ger, and forgetting not the conversion of the 
heathen in every land; in regard to the upbring- 
ing of our own children ; being given to hospitality; 
care for our own household — if, in regard to all 


40 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


these we must work as well as pray, what are we 
going to leave out that the physical frame need 
not get over-exhausted and the mind perplexed 
and worried ? I often think, Aaron, of your 
mother, always calm, never worried or flurried ; 
plenty of time to read her Bible, to meditate and 
pray. But, then, she was n’t born in December, 
during the biggest storm of the century ! I won- 
der if I ever shall be like her. But it isn’t all 
because it is I. It isn’t simply because I’ve a 
large house to look after, servants to direct, and 
company all the time. I know women who live in 
cottages do their own work and have company only 
once in awhile, who are just so overworked, worried, 
and restless, and longing for rest. They do their 
own washing Monday mornings, in the afternoon 
put on their best silk or satin, and make calls all 
the afternoon. They will iron Tuesday, all their 
clothes covered with puffs and tucks except the 
husband’s shirts; get up a great dinner for com- 
pany on Wednesday, fOr unexpected friends who 
drop in. I do think I ’d be more sensible there, I 
would put on a clean table-cloth, and give friends 
the same I thought good enough for my husband 
and children. Thursdays they are always at the 
sewing circle, leaving their children to play in 
the street when they return from school, and lius- 
band and children to eat a cold supper by them- 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


41 


selves. I do believe some of our members do n’t 
dare miss the circle for fear some one will think 
that their love for God’s cause is growing cold. 
Of course, the house looks like distraction on Fri- 
day; but, then, as old lady Metcalf says, ‘House- 
keeping is not a saving ordinance.’ Saturday is 
the baking day and preparation for the Sabbath. 
The mending and sewing have been sandwiched in 
during the week at every possible space. Now, 
Aaron, do n't you see these women do n’t get any 
more time than I do for spiritual and intellectual 
growth?” 

“The only paradise for women must be in the 
country. Let’s go on a farm, Elinor,” said Mr. 
Mellen smoothing out his daily over his knees. 

Mrs. Mellen went on with her sewing for sev- 
eral minutes without replying to her husband. At 
last she said, without looking up : “Of course I 
know, Aaron, that you only say that because you 
think you ought to say something. I have visited 
enough at Aunt Harriet’s and Aunt Kate’s to 
know what a life on a farm means. I think that 
they both get more comfort than women usually 
get out of life. But I think that they would do 
that in whatever position they were placed. But 
look at the life of the wife of our average AVestern 
farmer. Back in New England, life on a farm, as 
we ’ve seen it, is different ffom what it is anywhere 


42 


MODERN MA R TYRD OM. 


else. Oiir friends then lived near large cities and 
were independent in every respect. I think our 
Ann expressed a very correct idea of the life of a 
farmer’s wife. She told me one day that a farmer 
near Kandolph had asked her to marry him. “ Did 
you say, ‘yes?’” I inquired. ‘I was tempted to,’ 
she said. ‘ He has a good farm, a good little 
house of three rooms and fifteen head of stock, 
but he has six cows, raises corn and wheat,' and 
lives six miles from town. I should have to make 
butter every day, and cook and do the work for 
hired men six months in the year. If I thought 
there would ever be a chance for my life to be easy 
I might have thought about it, but his mother and 
his sisters work just as hard now that his father 
is rich as they did when they were poor. They 
never have a cent of money of their own, and go 
looking as forlorn as poor, folk. If I could only 
feel that it was n’t such a slave’s life I could do it, 
for I really do sort of like Sam.’ There is more 
testimony for you! and here is more still. Ann’s 
mother was in one day, and she was telling me how 
she had to work. She gets up in the morning and 
builds the fire — just think of a wmman and mother 
doing that — dresses three children and gets breakfast 
at 6 o’clock. She says her wood is all in ‘ chunks,’ 
or else she has to burn corn-cobs, and her fire all 
the time going out. She says she gets so tired 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


43 


with the little ones pulling at her skirts as she 
works, that it seems as though she could not live, 
and she says she is growing so cross that she is 
ashamed to look a minister in the face. Say, 
Aaron, do the doctors of divinity make mention 
of any state of physical depravity ?” 

Mr. Mellen took up a paper from the table, 
looked it over, saying: “I saw something in this 
good Presbyterian paper to-night on this very sub- 
ject. Here it is: ‘A word for nervous people.’” 
He raised his eyes to his wife, who replied to the 
questioning look, “Go on, I’d be glad to hear it.” 

“ ‘ Fretfulness, unlike many of the sins bequeathed 
us from a long line of ancestors is more the result 
of a weak body than a bad heart. We have seen 
people situated where necessity seemed to force 
them on, day after day, beyond their strength, 
until the nerves became so sensitive that it was al- 
most an impossible thing for them to possess their 
souls with patience. There are others who are 
thought of as saints, because they inherit calmness, 
a good stomach, and an active liver. They go 
through life beloved by high and low, happy and 
blessed from birth to death, considered an honor 
to the Church, and are held up as examples of the 
power of religion. Always tranquil and cheerful, 
nerves never vibrating, voice never raised above a 
low, soft tone, every one met with a smile, and 


44 


MODEBN MARTYRDOM. 


friends are as numerous as the number of speak- 
ing acquaintances.’” 

“I am so glad you read that,” said Mrs. Mel- 
len, when her husband ceased reading. “I have 
so often mourned over what I call my ‘ upsetting 
sins,’ and have thought that you must often con- 
trast my life with your mother’s beautiful, ever 
pleasant manner of living. It seems to me as 
though there ought to be an equalization somehow 
established, and I have been thinking that those 
who have to constantly fight — and then endure the 
mortification of only half overcoming — will have a 
higher seat in the kingdom than these others who 
have so little of the martyr in them, and who sail 
to glory on flowery beds of ease. Indeed, Aaron, I 
think the comparing a nervous, sensitive over- 
worked woman to a martyr of old is a feeble com- 
parison. What is one stroke of the ax, or the 
standing upon a pile of burning fagots wdiose hot 
flames in an instant take away the breath so ready., 
to be given? The being dropped into a caldron 
of burning oil — pain for an instant, then glory 
forever? Of course, I know that this requires 
courage and fortitude, but one rallies all one’s 
forces to meet it — it comes and passes, and is never 
to come again. But a trouble that worries, frus- 
trates, confounds, stings, and stabs, at which you 
strike or attempt to put aside, or one which you 


MODERN MARTYRDOM. 


45 


know you must carry, though it fills you with con- 
tempt and disgust — yes, give me my choice and 
I ’d take the burning oil or the stroke of the ax. 
A woman who will endure hard work, poverty, or 
an unloving husband in silence, to the end — there 
is no place in heaven too good for her. I am glad 
that there is a loving Father’s hand that leads us 
through the rough places as well as through the 
green pastures and by the still waters. And I am 
going to try not to add to my unhappiness when 
I have been impatient or unreasonable, by think- 
ing that I have a heart depraved above all hearts, 
but lay the sin at the right door, and give my poor 
depraved body rest from care and overwork, so 
that I need not sin again from the same cause.” 


V. 


R0ofpFi:^fs. 


NE rainy day we were rummaging a drawer 
that contained remembrances of our earlier 
life, and we came across an old portfolio 
full of poems, essays, letters, and compositions 
that were placed there in the early teens. 

In the collection we found a parody called 
“Footprints.” How well we remember when the 
boy across the aisle tossed it to our desk with a 
note, asking for help to “ get it on its feet.'” Noth- 
ing loath, as usual, to help along any fun, we added 
to the catalectic or acephalous, or cut from the 
hypermeter line, until at last, between us — Johnny 
Cotton and I — the poem was finished, and we 
thought it rather superior to the original by Long- 
fellow. We thought that our “Psalm of Life,” 
with its taking title would, doubtless, aid in help- 
ing us make footprints which no ocean of oblivion 
ever could obliterate. But just as the parody was 
finished, with my usual luck, having forgotten to 
watch as well as play, the production fell into the 
46 ^ 



FOOTPRINTS. 


47 


head master’s hands, and what did he do but make 
us — the youngest scliolars in the school — come on 
the platform and read to the young gentlemen and 
ladies our effusion! O, the shouts of laughter, 
the shaking of the fat cheeks of the master, and 
the covered mouths of the astonished assistants — 
an expressive “Trop! trop!” from our French 
teacher, to which any “too, too!” of this aesthetic 
age would fail to do justice. Were n’t we mad? 
And ever since then, have n’t we felt a disgust 
for ‘ ‘ home-made ” poetry f 

But over that parody, as I sat on the floor that 
rainy day to read it, I laughed, I wondered, and 
I cried. Then the title of the parody fixed itself 
in my mind, and I thought about “ Footprints” in 
general; about the footprints made by Johnny 
and his seat-mate ; the footprints which I had 
made, and which the class-mate, Ruth Chalmers, 
who sat the other side of me had made ; about 
the great anxiety every one falls into to make foot- 
prints, if not to “leave behind,” to make them so 
that all their contemporaries exclaim to each other 
as they see them, “ Behold.” Instead of being 
willing to grow on and on, like the arbutus hidden 
from the gaze of the careless eye, we want to stand 
forth like the sunflower, turning our faces toward 
our god — the applause of men. 

Instead of wishing to have our lives poured out 


48 


FOOTPRINTS. 


like the silent dew to bless the world and make it 
more fruitful, while we ourselves remain hidden 
away, we are thinking how w^e can, by the bray 
of noisy brass, make known our excellencies. In- 
stead of going through time’s thistle field, and qui- 
etly taking off the ripened heads, or pulling up 
the obnoxious weeds to make the path pleasanter 
for those who follow, we want, where lies every 
thistle-head or strong-rooted weed, to set up a 
stone to our honor and glory. 

As Christians we are anxious to ride in the 
chariot with our leader, but not willing to go on the 
battle-field as a common soldier. 

We have often wondered why this feeling is so 
universal. Is it because from our earliest child- 
hood, parents, teachers, and friends spur on the 
young to greater mental activity by exciting in 
their minds a desire for fame — for making foot- 
prints toward greatness — toward what the world 
calls greatness? “Get your lessons, do well, and 
may be you will yet become president of the United 
States,” has been said by hundreds of teachers in 
every State in the Union. 

What a pity that we can not by imagination 
realize the discomforts of greatness, the restlessness 
of the rich, so that instead of wealth and great- 
ness being the one thing desired, they should be 
among the last. What a pity that we do not stop 


FOOTPRINTS. 


49 


to think that a thing which lives so much out of 
doors is a source of decided uncornfortableness to 
the possessor. All their successes are known to 
the world as well as all their griefs. Nothing is 
held sacred; the public eye must gaze not only 
upon the coronation of the queen, but the death- 
bed scene of her heart’s dearest treasure. 

Of the three boys and two girls who helped on 
the “poems” found in that old portfolio, one left 
footprints in which all might safely walk, and he 
is now singing the songs of the redeemed before 
his Father’s throne. 

The other, “ Charlie” — I read his sermons in 
the New York dailies ; and his life is like his ser- 
mons, simple, grand, pure, and Christ-like. 

“Johnny” is in Maine, turning the world up- 
side down. He has “degrees” and titles added to 
his name, but I do not know what kind of foot- 
prints he is making. 

The girl who sat the other side of me, Kuth 
Chalmers — it was of Ruth whom I wished to speak 
when I took my pen to write about “Footprints.” 

Ruth was an orphan. At thirteen she lost 
Avealth, father and mother. Poor, homely, quick- 
tempered, impulsive, frank, and generous — her 
aunt, the strictest of strict Pharisees, took the child 
to train in the way she should go. Poor Ruth! 
Need we say that? Her mother left her in God’s 
4 


50 


FOOTPRINTS. 


hand, with perfect confidence that he would lead 
her child in just the right way — in the way that 
would end on the mountain-top, at the gate of the 
kingdom. Rich Ruth, with such a guardian ! He 
saw the whole length of the road, through the 
valley and up the mountain-side; We saw only a 
little way. 

It seemed hard because Ruth could not dress as 
well as her school companions. But false pride 
was stabbed in the heart during those years wRen 
we all loved her so in her dark calico dresses. 
Taste was also cultivated. The art and science of 
making minus plus, taught only in the school of 
poverty, and learned only by the best mathemati- 
cians of her sex, she learned perfectly. 

Every mother thinks her child pretty. Ruth’s 
aunt thought her niece homely, and conscientiously 
told her thoughts — vanity died. 

We will say “poor Ruth” when we think of 
her temper. She overcame ninety-nine times, but 
the hundredth came too often. Parents would 
have pitied. Her aunt punished her. Ruth learned 
patience. 

Her impulsiveness — it did seem as though it 
could do her no harm. How we loved her when 
she threw one arm across our shoulders, bent for- 
ward to look us in the face, and in a plaintive tone 
confessed that she ’d been rude or cross, and begged 


FOOTPRINTS. 


51 


pardon. How we honored her when she rushed to 
the master, saying, “Excuse her! Excuse her! 
Blame no one but me. I alone am to blame.” 
But a heart carried in sight is too often needlessly 
wounded, and she was taught self-control. God 
was constantly at work chipping the marble, but 
we only saw the work of the chisel, and not the 
guiding hand. 

Ruth at last learned to trust in her mother’s 
Savior, to cast all her care on him, and to follow 
him. We often wondered why God led her in the 
way he did — up steep, tangled, wild, rough paths. 

Years ago Ruth married. Dear children came 
to her home. With all her heart she loved them. 
God took them home to himself — all of them. 
God saw what a strong woman she could become. 
He knew that she could endure, and that she was 
worth the perfecting into his own image. But she 
grew weary and faint with the burden he cast upon 
her, and cried out, “ Save me, O God ; for the 
w^aters are come in unto my soul!” God heard 
her cry, and drew her nearer to himself. She 
realized that it grieved her Savior if she doubted 
his love; that it was just because he loved her 
so that he led her in the way she had walked; 
that he knew every step of the way ; that he had 
trodden a far rougher road that he might be able 
to comfort and direct her ; that if there had been 


52 


FOOTPRINTS. 


any other way, any easier path to the kingdom, 
he would surely have chosen it for her. She 
leaned hard on him, and found his grace sufficient. 

Ruth found great peace as she walked with 
God. She found the cross heavy when she unwill- 
ingly bore it, but now that she bears .it willingly 
it bears her up. There is no rough way to her 
feet now. She has great pleasure in living and 
working for her Master, but she often looks across 
from the mountain-top into the celestial city; and 
among the great multitude of all nations, and kin- 
dreds, and tongues, which stand before the throne, 
crying, “ Salvation to our God, and unto the 
Lamb,” she knows stand her parents, her sisters, 
her kindred. There are her children, whom she 
proudly hoped to teach the wisdom of this world — 
but instead they are learning the wisdom and the 
glory of the heavenly, and they will, by and by, 
lead her up Mount Zion, and show her the wonders 
of the golden city. 

Ruth Chalmers has learned to walk in her Sav- 
ior’s footsteps, and she follows so closely in his path 
that all who know or see can safely be guided by 
Ruth’s footprints — by all her footprints. Alas! 
that any who are walking in the same pathway 
should desire to hide footprints caused by ignorance, 
folly, or sinfulness. This desire to hide from the 
world some of our life-work comes only to those 


FOOTPRINTS. 


53 


who are working for applause, for notoriety ; to 
those to whom it matters not what they are, if only 
others think they are what they seem. 

In education, the end is often mistaken for the 
means. The whole process seems to be a system 
of cramming, and not learning; a desire for suf- 
ficient with which to make a display, but no 
thought of learning simply for the satisfaction it 
gives one’s own self. This inordinate desire for 
seeming to be what we would like to be, instead 
of what we are ; this desire for praise and the ap- 
plause of the world, or, as many call it, in regard 
to self, for appreciation, is injuring not only society 
and individuals, but also Churches — pastor and 
people. 

Sometimes, by accident, what should have been 
only a stone in the wall of the Church has been 
made a pillar. The mistake is soon discovered ; 
the edifice is in danger. But what is to be done? 

^ Pillar he is, and pillar he intends to remain. The 
storms come through the wall, but it is much more 
imposing to be a pillar than to fill a chink ! He 
puts forth renewed effort to make himself and 
others think him fitted for the place he fills. He 
spends money freely ; he talks in temperance meet- 
ings ; he is strong for woman’s suffrage — if it is the 
popular thing ; he is “ alderman in his native city,” 
when he can get the position ; he suddenly becomes 


54 


FOOTPRINTS. 


a “popular” worker in Sabbath-schools; he is in 
favor of any and every thing which will bring his 
name into the newspapers and before the public. 

Thomas a Kempis says : “Be not proud of thy 
good works, for the judgment of God is far dif- 
ferent from the judgment of men.” 

God loves sincerity and simplicity — even though 
it may go hand in hand with weakuess and igno- 
rance. “When Israel was a child, then I loved 
him.” 

A minister, whose Church enjoyed a great re- 
vival, was one day thinking how effective he was 
in the cause of the Master, and he thought he 
would question the young converts in regard to 
the first cause of their thoughtfulness on the sub- 
ject of their soul’s salvation. To his utter surprise 
he found that nearly every one could trace, either 
directly or indirectly, their first interest to the 
words of a pious old lady, who for four years had 
been an invalid in her own chamber. The pastor 
never again looked with pride upon any work he 
seemed to promote. He never again dared to gaze 
with complacency upon what seemed to be his own 
footprints. He worked on faithfully, caring only 
to please his Master, willing himself to be hidden 
away. 

So many Christians feel as did the disciples be- 
fore they fully learned Christ’s mission — that to be 


FOOTPRINTS. 


55 


his followers is to share in the glory and honors of 
the Church below, until they are called to receive 
their crown and everlasting honors in the Church 
above. And it seems to be harder, year by year, 
for one to seek not the seat at the right or the left 
hand, but allow others to take the coveted place, 
and himself go farther down and serve. 

It takes a peculiar love for the Master to learn 
that it is only the poor in spirit who possess their 
souls in the plenitude of peace. To the heart that 
desires to make footprints that shall be gazed upon 
with wonder and praise comes a great disquietude, 
a restlessness, and a tormenting anxiety which for- 
ever gnaws but is never satiated. 

Instead of “riding in the chariot,” instead of 
the path of ease, comfort and distinction — ^^instead 
of longing for such a life while on the journey to 
the kingdom, if one tries to recognize the Lord’s 
“ little ones,” if he seeks the forlorn, the poor, and 
the ignorant — looking for the Lord’s features in 
the sad and the lonely — he will have his mind too 
full, and will be too anxious about following in his- 
Master’s footsteps to think much about what the 
world will think of the footprints he himself will 
leave behind. 

Though Christianity may sometimes reveal itself 
in such array as to attract attention, may some- 
times be attracted to the pomp and glory of this 


56 


FOOTPRINTS. 


world, there is no heart in it. Christ looks with a 
peculiar love on the poor, the needy, the lonely, 
the suffering, and the simple. Most of the great 
fires in the Christian world have been kindled by 
these “little ones.” 

The character which the Lord forms within us 
is one at variance with all our ideas of natural 
greatness. We know that we can actually serve 
but one object. We are either striving to obtain 
the prize of earthly endeavor, or the unseen peace 
and joy obtained by a heart intensely set on doing 
the will of the Father. Christ does not trust him- 
self to a divided heart ; of this, as Christians, we 
are aware. 

There are many gains and many losses in Christ 
besides the great loss of the salvation of the soul. 
“We are kept poor by what we miss, as well as 
by what w^e lose.” A little more sacrifice, a little 
more patience, just a little more perseverance, and 
to what might we not attain! O, the love, the 
peace, the rest, the power w^e lose by this lack ! 
Sometimes we hesitate about going on — have no 
desire to “press forward ”^dare not say “Thy 
will,” lest He will lead where we do not wish to 
follow. We are afraid of our position in society ; 
afraid of our ease; afraid of our comfort; afraid 
of what “ they will say,” cowards that we are I 

Sometimes we fail to make the right footprints 


FOOTPRINTS, 


67 


because we are too anxious to do some greater 
work than the duty next before us. The little 
deeds' that require sacrifice, which bring happiness 
to others; the putting self out of sight that w^e 
may give comfort to our friends; the little kind- 
nesses given us to do, we overlook in our search 
for some deed requiring a strength of mind and 
soul which will make its impress on beholders. 
We have seen Churches of a large membership, 
all anxious to serve the blessed Savior, who has 
done so much for them, bow humbly before their 
Maker when the pastor offered prayer, sing with 
fervor, 

“ O, for a thousand tongues to sing 
My great Eedeemer’s praise,” 

and then sit silent through prayer or conference 
meeting, only as the pastor called on them by 
name, asking them to speak or pray. 

With full hearts these same Church members 
will sing, 

“ O, may it all my powers engage 
To do my Master’s will,” 

and every one of them refuse the overtasked Sun- 
day-school superintendent, when he hegs them to 
lend a helping hand ; turn their backs on a weak, 
struggling choir, which needs their help in leading 
the praise in song on the Sabbath ; or think it too 


FOOTPRINTS. 


• 58 

much trouble to open their kitchen, dining-room, 
or parlor door for a feeble class-meeting, that is 
freezing to death in one corner of a barn of a 
church. The Sabbath-school class disappears; the 
choir worries out a miserable existence, dying an 
unhonored death ; the class-meeting ends in bring- 
ing together only the leader and his wife. The 
Church mourns, and goes on singing and sigh- 
ing for work to do for the Master. Alas for the 
footprints ! 


VI. 




il have n:et but very few men who were 
sentimentalists, yet, as we look over the 
list of our acquaintances, we find here and 
there one of the very tenderest kind. But where 
we find one such man, we find a score of women, 
who, in beautiful rooms, recline in luxuriotis easy 
chairs, with a mystic book, from which they read 
the poetic effusions of some religionist. They de- 
light in fervent rhapsodies of golden streets, angel’s 
harps, and heavenly glory. They enjoy the beauty 
and poetry of religion, and hope to float on the 
perfumed air to the very gates of the celestial city. 
They fancy it is an easy thing to give up pleasure, 
love the sinner, care for the sick and needy, and 
long for the time when they will meet their Sav- 
ior and say to him, “ I cheerfully gave up all for 
thee.” The real state of the case would be, that 
if they should suddenly be transported, with all 
the world, to the open gate of the New Jerusalem, 
they would look over the crowd, and if the poor, 

59 



60 


SENTIMENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 


the ragged, the ignorant, as we see them iu this 
world, Avere all entering, the “sentimental” Chris- 
tians Avould hold up their clean skirts, and Avait 
to see if any of “our set” were going in. 

With many of us there is too much passing by 
on the other side and not enough of the stooping, 
uplifting, and personal help which makes the rocky 
road to Jericho so beautiful a picture to the mind’s 
eye. 

There is a vast difference between that pure 
and undefiled religion that keeps one unspotted 
from the Avorld, that cares for the sick, the poor, 
and the weary, and this self-concentrated senti- 
mentalism. There is a great difference betAveen 
reading about doing the Avill of the Father and 
the doing his Avill Avith earnestness and zeal. A 
difference between Avishing to do Avell and doing 
Avell — betAveen bene-volentia and bene-factio. 

The reading and the Avishing, Avithout the prac- 
ticing, causes one’s piety to be absorbed in self; 
makes one strive for a kind of monastic piety, 
Avhile the life is empty of active duties and Chris- 
tian charity. To us there is no loAver type of hu- 
man selfishness than that shown by one Avho is so 
engrossed in the work of saving his own soul that 
he is practically indifferent to the Avorld around 
him, excepting, perhaps, a few congenial compan- 
ions or friends. 


SENTIMENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 


61 


Publishers state that religious books are in great 
demand, and many of them are read by those who 
have had only a superficial religious experience, and 
to them the books are only a mysticism ; but think- 
ing that they comprehend, and that they enjoy the 
same length, and breadth, and height, and depth, 
they speak of these religious truths in a flippant 
manner. To those who hear such expressions, and 
do not understand the true spiritual state of the 
speaker, only knowing that their words and their 
lives do not correspond, they are the cause of being 
to them a handicap in the race of life. 

How often we hear, “All is on the altar;” 
“We’ve given all for Christ;” “Our lives are 
consecrated to his service,” and like testimonies. 
We think that they believe themselves sincere, and 
we doubt not that they think themselves honoring the 
profession they make, but when the cause of Christ 
needs five or ten dollars which they could give by 
practicing a little self-denial, such a test of their 
sincerity has found them weighed and wanting. 
When the evening comes for prayer-meeting, it is 
cloudy, or cold, or too warm for comfort, and with 
the thought, “ but few will be out, and the meeting 
will be dull,” they resign themselves to a new book 
and the comfort of home. When the afternoon 
comes for the missionary meeting, some home duty 
which would cheerfully have been laid aside if an 


62 


SENTIMENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 


invitation had come to visit a near or an honored 
friend, but now, which seems sufficient excuse, 
keej^s them away from the place of prayer, leaving 
the support and the interest of the meetings to the 
care of those who believe in the “doing” of the 
will of the Father, who believe that faith without 
works is all in vain. 

Christ's words, “ I am with you alway,” have a 
deep meaning to his children. What we do for 
his “ little ones,” his “ poor,” we do for him. We 
are so apt to forget that the “little ones” do not 
mean simply the children, or the “ poor,” those 
who alone suffer for food and raiment. There are 
more hungry ones on earth starving for love, sym- 
pathy, a kind look or word, than for the “ meat 
which perisheth.” There are many of his own 
‘ ‘ little ones ” hidden away waiting for the friendly 
hand to brush off the shyness which covers their 
souls from mortal eyes, or keeps them away from 
the face of the Father. We are too apt to think 
that it is always from the classes below us where the 
“ little ones ” are found. There is many and many 
a soul, rich in this world’s goods, who is groping 
in the dark, looking and longing to find access to 
the Father, or for a better way of serving him 
whom he has already found. In whatever class 
of society we are, we can look up as well as down 
to find those who need our help. The great pity 


SENTIMENTAL CHBISTIANITT. 


63 


is, many do not have — shall I say it ? — do not have 
the good sense to treat both classes with equal 
respect. 

Several years ago I had a colored washer-woman, 
to whom I was much attached. I wrote for her 
letters to her friends, aud learned her sad life-his- 
tory. I tried for nearly a year to teach her to 
read, until she gave up in despair, saying one day, 
“It is no use, I am too old. If I only could have 
learned when I was a child. Why! Mis’s Fran- 
ces, my father was the smartest lawyer in the 
State of Missouri, and sometimes his blood, in my 
veins, boils, I feel my degradation so.” 

“I wish, Charlotte, that you were a Christian,” 
I quietly replied, as I saw the look of anguish in 
her beautiful eyes; “ then it all would be made up 
to you in the other world.” 

“ Do n’t talk to me that way. God never was, 
he is n’t, and never will be good to a ‘ nigger,’ and 
those that call themselves his children are the same 
bitter toward us. To tell you the plain truth, I 
think I ’m a heap sight better woman than some 
of the high-toned Church members. I works for 
heaps of ’em, and it ’s mighty mean most of ’em 
is. Last week — Tuesday — that dreadful cold day, 
I washed for Mis’s Kay. She is one of the awful 
pious ones. She always gives a big wash, always 
scolds about the way it ’s done— and you know I ’m 


64 


SENTIMENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 


a good washer — she beats me down in my price, 
and, then, when I’m tired to death, makes me go 
to the store after my pay. But the meanest thing 
she does — and every thing she does is mean enough — 
she never gives me half enough for my dinner, and 
what she does give me she shoves out into the 
wash room — wet and cold that it is — about as you 
fling out bones to your dog. If that ar’ woman 
has religion, I do n’t want none of it. If she 
will be in heaven, I ’d rather be somewhere 
else.” 

What could I say? Mrs. Bay says God has 
done a great work for her, and is always asking 
other Christians to come up on the mount where 
she is, “in heaven’s border land.” How often, 
without knowing what we are doing, as Christians 
we give, instead of bread, only a stone. 

It is very hard to believe that God does all the 
work, and that one never has to answer one’s own 
prayers. It certainly is a delightful faith to feel 
that all that is required of us is “to sit and sing 
ourselves away to everlasting bliss ; ” simply fold 
the hands and float away to heaven. Many are 
trying to do this, we believe. We read our Bibles, 
we sing, we pray, we read the books on the higher 
life ; the biographies of good men, whose besetting 
sins and battles with self and Satan are never 
“found in print,” and with hearts full of good 


SENTIMENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 


65 


emotions and tender sensibility, say, Lord ! Lord ! 
forgetting that this is not all that is required. 

We have been idle in our Master’s vineyard so 
long that our spiritual blood is poor, and we are 
in danger of spiritual paralysis. We think we are 
overcoming self, when we are simply so indolent 
that nothing ever can disturb us. 

We may deceive ourselves as we will, we are 
not following Christ when we refuse to worh for 
him. Bare negative goodness is not enough, but a 
life of positive holiness is required. Such a life 
does not consist in going to Church because we get 
there the food that just suits our taste ; working 
in Sabbath or mission school, because such work 
gratifies our natural inclinations ; putting on char- 
itable deeds like phylacteries — all these acts are 
only a small, if any, part of the Christ-likeness of 
life. 

If we have trifled with Christianity long enough 
and desire to find the plane of the higher life, and 
have Christ dwell in us, we have only to open the 
door of our heart. It opens from the inside. 

We say that we want him there, but we wonder 
if we do actually want him constantly present; 
always looking into our life-work and our motives; 
want him to go with us into the kitchen, the nur- 
sery, or when we “run in” to see a neighbor. 
Yes, we know that God sees us. We learned that 
5 


66 


SENTIMENTAL CHRISTIANITY. 


in childhood, but, somehow, do n’t we feel as 
though he looked upon some of our acts from a 
distance. We realize that he sees every act of our 
neighbor, but of our words, and thoughts, and 
deeds — we can not realize the fact with the same 
force. 

If we really want the presence, it is only to 
ask that our hearts be made so pure, so holy that 
each will be a temple wherein he may dwell; it 
is only to study to know his will ; study his Word, 
listen to his voice, follow his commands, and then 
we can show our faith by our works. We wdll 
seek for the pure religion of the Gospel, instead 
of a conglomerate sort gathered from Kempis, 
Madame Guyon, Kutherford, Baxter, Swedenborg, 
Murray, Beecher, Swing, Bushnell, Dora Green- 
well, Mrs. Palmer; and lesser lights. 


VII. 


^UJ?- ^Zsi-foT? 


J I^RS. ALZIRUS BROWN was one day wait- 
ing in the store for a clerk to bring a hood 
^ that would match her seal-skin cloak. As 
she sat by the counter she opened her Russia- 
leather hand-bag to see if she had money enough 
to pay for the hood, as she had not really started 
on a shopping expedition when she left home. In 
taking out her money she also took out a leaf-tract, 
published by some missionary society, with this for 
the heading : “ Our Best for the Master.’ It gave 
a touching account of a poor heathen woman in 
India who had two children, one a beautiful, per- 
fect boy, and the other a blind girl. Her sorrow 
was great because she felt that the god was angry 
with her because one child was a girl and blind. 
If she had not offended him in some way, both 
would have been boys, and she would have been so 
happy. The blindness she did not mind so much, 
but to have a poor, despised girl was more than 
67 


68 


OUR BEST FOR THE MASTER. 


she could bear, and at whatever cost the god must 
be appeased. 

One day the lady missionary found the basket- 
cradle empty, and the mother weeping in agony 
at its side. It was the blind girl that remained — 
the perfect, beautiful, dearly loved boy had been 
sacrificed by being thrown into the Ganges, in order 
to appease the fancied displeasure of her god ! 

The missionary lady asked why, if she must 
sacrifice one, had it not been the blind girl? 

“Ah, that was my great grief,” she replied, “ I 
could not offer a girl when I had a boy, nor a 
blind child when I had a perfect one. The god 
must always have the best. Alas ! alas ! the sun- 
shine of my heart has gone out forever ! ” And 
the poor mother beat her breast and tore her hair 
in agony. 

The missionary lady asked if we, with our purer 
faith, are always thus consistent. “Do we give 
the best of our time, talents, property, influence, 
and affection to our King ; to him who gave his 
best — his only Son — for us, to save us from just 
such ignorance, superstition, such a life of miserj 
and degradation as that of the heathen woman ; 
who gave his dearly beloved Son that we might 
have peace and joy in this life, and everlasting joy 
in the life eternal ; to him, do we render our best?” 

Mrs. Brown laid the tract back into the hand- 


OUR BEST FOR THE MASTER, 


69 


bag. She counted her money, and folded the sev- 
enty-five dollars she was intending to spend for 
the hood, and placed it inside the tract. When 
the clerk came back with just the hood she de- 
sired, she said, “ I Ve changed my mind about the 
hood; I’ll take a good worsted one,” and laid two 
silver dollars on the counter, saying to herself, 
“ Seventy-five dollars for the heathen, and two 
dollars for a hood ; that does seem better than two 
dollars for the heathen and seventy-five for the 
hood. I would rather like to know if that seal- 
skin hood helps save a soul.” 

A few days after, as a friend saw her inclose a 
check for seventy-five dollars in a letter directed 
to the treasurer of the Woman’s Foreign Mission- 
ary Society, she asked, “ What is that for, Mrs. 
Brown? ” 

“ Only a seal-skin hood to India,” was the reply. 


VIII. 


©od’s • • ]j©^e. 


yh) OD’S love is so high that it reaches heaven — 
|Oj even into glory — so low that it stoops to the 
r vilest sinner; the length is so great that it 
can not be measured — reaching into eternal bless- 
edness ; and the breadth is so broad that it takes 
in every human creature ; and yet, at prayer-meet- 
ing, not long ago, I heard one of God’s saints 
doubting God’s willingness to give him the desire 
of his heart — the fullness of the love of Christ. 
The promise is, that if we hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, we shall be filled. 

I have to-day been reading Paul’s prayer for 
the Ephesians, in the third chapter. Like the 
Master, Paul asks for a perfect state for those for 
whom he prays. I am so glad that the door of 
the “inner room” flew open, and all the world 
could hear Paul’s prayer ; and if Paul dare ask 
such perfect gifts for these poor, ignorant Gentile 
converts, can we not ask them for the Church of 
to-day ? 


GOD'S WONDERFUL LOVE. 


71 


This Church at Ephesus was made up of slaves, 
subject to tyrannical masters, and full of petty 
vices; mothers with poverty, and inherited low 
tastes, with which to contend ; thieves (Eph. iv, 
28), whom Paul desired to “ steal no more.” And 
in the fifth chapter he wants to present such a 
Church as “holy, and without blemish.” 

So often when we sigh for this length and 
breadth, and height and depth of the love of 
Christ, we feel as though it was not meant for us. 
Ministers — who have only to think and pray and 
read, and go about doing good — this blessing is for 
them. Of course, they realize that they can not 
do their life-work Avithout it. For women Avho 
have leisure, and can find time for devout read- 
ing, meditation and prayer — they can be holy. 
For those who do not have to spend the time bar- 
ring the door and Avindow against merciless pov- 
erty, AA'ho is constantly trying to come in and make 
himself at home — they can rest in Jesus. AYhen 
our lives -are full of sunshine, and Ave dAvell in the 
midst of peace and prosperity, Ave see the hand of 
Providence, and Ave can realize that God leads us ; 
but, Avhen trouble comes, Avhen friends forsake, 
Avhen poverty Avalks in, Avhen loved ones leave us, 
then Ave feel as though God had forgotten and for- 
saken us. 

Isaiah asks, “ Can a Avoman forsake her suck- 


72 


GOD^S WONDERFUL LOVE. 


ing child? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not 
forget thee. Behold, I have graven theejipon the 
palms of my hands ? Sing, O heavens ; and he 
joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, () 
mountains; for the Lord hath comforted his peo- 
ple, and will have mercy upon his afflicted!” 

The prophet says that God’s love is stronger 
than the love of a mother. And mother-love is 
the strongest and most beautiful thing in all the 
world. The mother-love that so cheerfully gives 
sleepless nights and wearisome days in the helpless 
infancy ; that toiled, and planned, and worked, 
early and late, that we might be well clothed, and 
educated even better than she herself had been. 
The love that follows the wayward son the wide 
world over, and never ceases to pray for hi^ return 
and for his salvation. The love that clings to the 
daughter, and would give her a welcome, though 
the whole world look upon her with scorn and 
with contempt. And to this Being wfflose love is 
beyond human comprehension — who is love itself — 
we come doubtingly. Certainly, such children 
must grieve the Father far more than can those 
who never knew his wondrous love. 

Too often we come to him thinking perhaps he 
hears us, or it may be possible he does not re- 
gard us. If it is God who gives us the desire to 
pray, is not that the evidence he will hear? 


GOD*S WONDEBFUL LOVE. 


73 


If we have the faith — that living faith which 
enables us to keep God’s word — we have the faith 
which brings the answer to prayer, and when we 
ask we receive. When we daily pray, “ lead us 
not into temptation,*’ our Father looks into our 
future, and he loves us so that he answers the pe- 
tition and denies us something upon which we have 
set our heart. Then we declare that some other 
petition is not answered, and God does not love us. 

My darling child fell from her chair and injured 
the elbow-joint. The arm Avas badly swollen and 
very painful. Several times when I bandaged it 
she exclaimed, as I hurt her, “You don’t love 
me, mamma!” Mothers, tell me if all the pain 
my child suffered was not doubled in my own 
heart ? Yet I had to make her suffer, or her arm 
would be permanently stiff, and she would suffer 
for life. 

How many of us actually feel as though God’s 
love was really, constantly, and unchangeably 
greater than our mother’s love for us? Is God to 
us a being to whom we can go, not only reverently 
but confidingly? Have we really faith in him, or 
have we not? 

Christ does not ask of thee. 

Faith in thy faith, 

But only faith in him. 

And this he meant by saying, ‘ Come to me.’ ” 


74 


GOD'S WONDERFUL LOVE. 


The source of all unbelief is always sin, and 
for this reason the Bible treats unbelief as punish- 
able. The greatest skeptic of the age would be- 
come a saint if he could get rid of his unbelief. 

It often seems as though many of God’s chil- 
dren tried to hold God off instead of trying to 
draw near to him. I remember a prayer I ’ve 
heard a friend offer at the family altar: “ O, thou 
great Jehovah, to whom angels bow, and before 
whom archangels veil their faces, we poor, sinful 
mortals dare not come into thy presence and all 
through the prayer he held himself away off from 
“ Our Father.” If we will only accept God as our 
Father and Christ as our soul’s most familiar friend, 
we shall begin to realize what a loving heart has 
God the Father, and what a friend we have in 
Jesus. It is our own fault if we do not draw near 
to and dwell in such communion with God as to 
realize constantly his great and wonderful love 
to us. 


IX. 


J^is5i0ic) • • II) • ^(ir)i<zi, 


DO N’T see, ladies, how you can consent to 

|r live without a missionary society,” said Mrs. 

♦ Fairchild one day when she was visiting in 
Xenia. “ Do n’t you believe in missions, or do n’t 
you care to send the good news of a Savior’s love 
to those who are dying, a thousand each day, in 
heathen lands, without any knowledge of him who 
died to redeem them as much as he did to redeem 
you or me?” 

“ O, yes, we believe in missions, but they cost 
so much,” said Mrs. Sparsely, who saved every 
cent she could against some imaginary time of 
need, forgetting that Jesus told her not to lay up 
treasures on earth, but do as she would be done 
by, and leave God to “clothe” her, for her “heav- 
enly Father knoweth” that she has need of these 
things. 

“Yes, I know they cost. They cost the life 
of the Son of God. They cost tears and heart- 
aches on the part of men and women who have 
75 


76 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


given up all that was dear to them on earth, taken 
their lives in their hands, and gone to foreign fields 
to spread the glad tidings of ‘Peace on earth.’ It 
costs sorrow unspeakable for the father to bid his 
daughter farewell,’ knowing she is braving danger, 
sickness, and death, for conscience’ sake. It costs 
agony, only such as mothers know, to see the first- 
born, the darling son, depart with the hope of never 
a reunion in this world. Yes, I know that missions 
‘ cost,’ but will it not cost us more to deny ourselves 
the blessed privilege of w^orking in this glorious 
cause?” and Mrs. Fairchild, Avho w^as growing more 
earnest as she talked, here laid her bit of patch- 
Avork in her lap, and looking at the minister’s Avife, 
Avho sat near said, “ Hoav does it happen that you 
haA^e no auxiliary here? I have often seen great 
good done Avhen the minister’s Avife has been ear- 
nest in the cause. Why, up in our toAAm, Ave have 
a mite of a creature for a minister’s Avife, but 
she does more for missions than all the other 
Avomen in the Church. We have over sixty mem- 
bers, and since they began to be in earnest in for- 
eign missionary Avork, they seem like people arisen 
from the dead in regard to their oAAm Church AAmrk.” 

“ Yes, I knoAV Sister Gill has been of great use,” 
replied the minister’s Avife, “ but she has only tAvo 
children Avhile I have five. Really, I do n’t see 
Avhere I could find time to do any more than I am 


MISSION WOBK IN XENIA. 


77 


doing. There is one afternoon, every two weeks, 
to this ‘ Dorcas ; ’ one afternoon each month to 
the temperance ; one afternoon every week to the 
woman’s prayer-meeting ; one evening to prayer- 
meeting, one to class, and one to choir rehearsal, 
besides the calls and the invitations out to spend 
the day. As it is, I do n’t get time to read the 
papers and magazines.” 

“I don’t think we are required to make so 
many sacrifices, Mrs. Fairchild,” said Miss Elin- 
wood, who sat in an easy-chair turning over the 
leaves of a scrap-book. “ Now, I never could see 
the sense in a continual harping on the subject of 
‘ heathen ’ and ‘ missions.’ If the heathen never 
hear of Jesus they will be saved, if they do as 
well as they know how. I heard our minister say 
so, and because they suffer terribly in this world — 
well, this life is short, and it does n’t matter much 
how ’t is passed. See how many in this country 
reject Christ, and it will soon be the same in 
heathen lands; they will not all accept him, and I 
think it actually foolish to give them the chance 
to reject their Savior. The Bible says it will be 
better for Sodom, in the day of judgment, than 
for the cities that have received light. Of course 
that means, in this age, heathen lands and our land. 
I am so tired of the demands made upon us, that 
sometimes I have half a mind to fold my hands and 


78 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


do nothing. As Mrs. Greet just said, I do n’t see 
where we could crowd in any more, and we cer- 
tainly could not do without the societies Ave have. 
This ‘ Dorcas ’ is such a good place to get acquainted. 
None of us, but Mrs. Greet and Mrs. Powers, 
and perhaps one or two others, ever go to the 
evening meetings, so we never should see each 
other if it was n’t for the ‘ Dorcas ’ or the temper- 
ance society. Then the ‘ Dorcas ’ gets up all the 
levees, festivals, socials, donation parties, and ex- 
hibitions of all sorts. We made seventy-five dol- 
lars at our last Punch and Judy shoAV, and seventy- 
five dollars is not to be sneered at in a Church 
like ours ; and at our temperance meetings Ave have 
such good times. We got up ‘ Ten Nights in a 
Bar Room’ not long ago, and gave it in the 
church ; made lots of money and had no end of 
fun. I think missionary societies are so poky.” 

After Miss EliiiAvood spoke there was silence for 
a little time, as if the subject under discussion 
Avould be dropped, and fearing lest it Avould be, 
Mrs. Fairchild, looking toAvard the lady Avhom she 
Avas visiting, said : “ How shall Ave get over the 
texts, ‘ Oo into all the world, and preach the Gos- 
pel to every creature?’ ‘Jesus Christ tasted death 
for every man !’ We all of us knoAV that every body 
is invited to the Gospel feast. The very last Avords 
of our Savior to us Avere, ‘ Go ye, therefore, and 


MTSSIO:^- WORK IK XENIA. 


79 


teacli all nations/ or as Clarke renders it, ‘ Go ye, 
therefore, and make disciples of all iiatmis,^ ‘ teach- 
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I com- 
manded you ; and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world/” 

“That does sound as though it meant we should 
do something more than stand like the five little 
chickens, and ‘ sigh’ and ‘ wish,’ ” said Mrs. Pow- 
ers, an elderly lady, whom every one loved and 
honored ; “ but somehow I never took that to mean 
any thing to any one but the disciples to whom it 
was said. It always seemed as though we had 
enough to do right here in our own Church and 
our own town. Then, too, it had a ‘ flavor ’ of a 
‘ woman’s rights ’ movement for ladies to make a 
specialty of this. Our ministers have once or 
twice spoken rather lightly of the work of the 
women in this foreign missionary field. I don’t 
see why they shoidd, for I never knew one to ob- 
ject to the work of the women in their own 
Church. When I was at Kansas City last Sum- 
mer the ministers were loud in the praises of the 
‘ Pastor’s Christian Union,’ or something of that 
sort. I hope I have the word ‘Christian,’ in the 
right place — could it have been ‘ Christian Pas- 
tors ? ’ It is a society where the minister keeps 
the women doing pastoral work and reporting to 
him. A grand thing, I dare say, only one woman 


80 MISSION WORK IN XENIA, 

who lived near my daughter used to send her six 
forlorn little children out to her neighbors while 
she did her ‘pastoral’ work. I can’t see why we 
could n’t give one hour each month learning about, 
praying for, and giving to foreign w^ork, doing, 
perhaps, less of what we call home w^ork. Some- 
times I think that what we call ‘ home wmrk ’ 
amounts to very little, so few are in downright 
earnest in their efforts to save souls. I ’ve been a 
Christian over twenty-five years, and I do n’t know 
that I have led one soul to Christ. I do n’t like 
the thought of a starless crown. But see what 
is being done in heathen lands. Only the otlier 
day I saw in one corner of our religious paper an 
account of what two missionary ladies were doing 
somewhere in Asia. They had, under their care, 
about thirty women and children, and at the be- 
ginning of the year only one of those women was 
a Christian — at the close, all were Christians but 
five. We have two hundred Church members, and 
from the hundreds of the unconverted around us, we 
have, perhaps, helped a dozen to come to the Savior, 
most of them children from the Sabbath-school — 
from classes taught by women. I wish, Mrs. Fair- 
child, we could have a Woman’s Foreign Mission- 
ary Society here. I ’m willing to do what I can. 
What can Ave do, and how shall we organize ? ” 
Mrs. Fairchild did not reply, hoping others 


MISSION WOliK IN XENIA. 


81 


would speak on the subject ; and, after a few min- 
utes of silence, Mrs. Howard, an earnest, Christian 
woman, who had trained three sons to a noble 
manhood, one of whom was preaching the Gospel, 
and the others doing grand work in the world for 
the Master, said, in gentle tones, “This work of 
saving souls in foreign lands has often been a bur- 
den on my heart. I have sometimes wondered if 
our very objections to the work could not, if we 
took them on our knees to God, be wrought into 
arguments for doing this very thing. My son 
sends me, sometimes, a copy of The Heathen 
Woman’s Friend, and I saw in one an account of 
the manner in which the converts in heathen lands 
act after they have found Jesus. You know that 
here, in our own Churches, when souls are con- 
verted, we have to brace them from behind, stand 
close to their sides to strengthen, haul them with 
ropes hung with flowers, from the front, for sev- 
eral years, and hardly save them at that. We 
must praise, flatter, and coax ; give them places 
of trust in the Church and Sabbath-school ; and 
then pray that God will take them when there is 
a revival in February, so that they may enter 
heaven at last. You know that all our shows, en- 
tertainments, exhibitions, festivals, socials, and 
such things, are to amuse, entertain, and keep our 
young converts. But in foreign lands the converts 
6 


82 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


from heathenism are fired with the news, and speak 
forth the praises of Jesus to every one they meet. 
In this last paper which Walter sent me, was a 
letter from a missionary who is in India, and she 
said that the first day she was there she saw a poor 
woman throw her child into the Ganges and a 
hungry shark come and take it. She in some way 
got the woman under her influence, and when, 
after a w^hile, she understood about Jesus, she cried 
out, ‘ O, why did not some one tell me this before 
I gave my boy to the river! O, I felt then that 
the fruit of my body was not enough for the sins 
of my soul. This news of a Savior is too good to 
keep ! I want every one to hear it. This is a 
religion which satisfies my soul. I must go back 
to my people and tell this story.’ 

“‘But you’ll be persecuted, you’ll be beaten, 
starved — hilled.* 

“ ‘ I care not,’ she replied, ‘ I have a husband, 
I have a mother, I have sisters. I came here to 
get peace. I drowned my boy to appease my 
god. O, my boy I My beautiful, perfect boy ! 
But I have found Jesus. I must go and carry the 
glad news.’ And this heathen woman had been 
the means of founding a Church, where were now 
two hundred members, and from them had gone 
out twenty native teachers. These teachers are 
somewhat educated, and could get, in government 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


83 


employ, five or six times the salary they receive 
as teachers, but who so love their work that they 
are williug to suffer with hunger or thirst if they 
can only tell of a risen Redeemer. They often go 
. with only one meal a day ; they sleep anywhere, 
and endure gladly all sorts of trials for Christ’s 
sake. The writer said that these native preachers 
say it is easy to teach and preach five and six 
times a day, where thousands of converts are 
praying, ‘ God bless our preachers. Keep the 
fever off them. Help them to tell all our people 
about the blessed Jesus. God help our people to 
hear the good news.’ 

‘‘ This lady, who was writing, said that she had 
often heard her husband say that he wished he 
could divide himself into five or six parts, and 
preach in different places at the same time, so 
great is the need and the desire for more preach- 
ers. ‘ It is our joy’ she says, ‘ to spend every thing 
for Jesus, who has done so much for us.’ In the 
ten years they have been there, where at first were 
forty-five Christians, are now six thousand eight 
hundred and over (the exact number I have for- 
gotten). How much has our Church grown during 
the last ten years ? I am decidedly in favor of our 
working all we can for the conversion of the hea- 
then. It cost as much to redeem their souls as it 
did our souls. I wish we could have a society, 


84 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


and could meet once a montli and talk over this 
thing, and pray over it, and give for it ; could 
‘ cast up the highway, and gather out the stones,’ 
so that the missionary could do even better work 
than he is now doing; and, best of all, that in 
getting interested in this work for God, we can 
learn to love it.” 

“I, too,” said Mrs. Powers, “want to help 
‘ gather out the stones.’ The Gospel has done so 
much for us women, we are bound, in duty, to 
work on this highway to pay our tax. Here we 
are, all traveling along to glory, singing, 

“ ‘ We ’re marching through Immanuel’s ground. 
To fairer worlds oh high,’ 

never changing the hymn to, 

“ ‘ The vale must rise, the mountain fall. 
Crooked be straight, and rugged plain.’ 

“ If we want our King to go on throughout the 
earth from conquering to conquest, we must help 
get the way ready for him. I do believe we are 
only half doing duty. I hope the Lord will for- 
give us the past ; and let us, sisters, try and think 
of something besides ‘ owr’ and ‘my;’ something 
besides ^ our town,’ ‘our church,’ and ‘ m.y soul.’” 

“ I heard a lady say, who was a member of the 
Woman’s Board of Missions of the Congregational 
Church, that we, as women, were paid over and 


MISSION WOBK IN XENIA. 


85 


over again for all we did in this work by the rich 
inward experience we gain. And I have noticed,” 
said Ml'S. Vail, a lady to whom all looked with 
confidence and respect, “ that God seems to give a 
peculiar blessing to the Christian Avomen who are 
working in the cause of foreign missions ; that 
the Avoman Avho, in her sympathy and prayers, 
takes in the Avomen (missionary and heathen) in 
other lands, finds she has invested in a Avonderful 
mine of love and grace. And I believe that in 
shutting out missions Ave shut out Christ, not only 
from the heathen, but from our own souls. AVe 
are paid as individuals and as nations for all that 
AA'e do for less favored lauds than ours. I saAV in a 
paper the other day, that England had been doubly 
paid for all that she had done for Australia by 
the profit on some one article of export — pitchforks, 
I think. Her effort for the evangelization of Aus- 
tralia had enriched England in many ways. Not 
only manufactures and commerce, but science has 
also received great impulse from missions. There 
is something for us Avomen to do besides look at 
our own four Avails, and the horizon that shuts us 
in. And one of the most delightful thoughts of 
to-day is, that we are not the only Avomen in the 
Avorld Avho are desiring to reach out a helping 
hand. EveryAvhere, in every Church, every town, 
and every land, the field is ready for the harvest. 


86 


MISSION WOBir IN XENIA. 


In our effort to help the heathen women, we help 
ourselves, and we help other women everywhere. 
There is a wonderful and beautiful tie that binds 
women together, in all lands and in all ages, and 
if we want to sing ‘ Blest be the tie,’ we must an- 
swer our own prayers, as far as we can, by trying 
to make it a ‘ blessed tie.’ I don’t know as I am 
surprised — yet it does seem rather strange — that so 
many of us ladies have been interested in mission 
work, and never have spoken of it before. I sup- 
pose a volcano is some time getting ready to break 
forth.” ^ 

“ I was just thinking, Mrs. Vail, that I ivas sur- 
prised at the fact of our being interested in a sub- 
ject of which we had never spoken,” said Mrs. 
Shattuck, another lady of intelligence and refine- 
ment, “ and yet, when I tell you of what I have 
■done you will smile to think I could think others 
would be apt to speak of all that was in mind or 
heart. I have been thinking for some time about 
missions, and a feAV months ago sent one dollar 
and a halfd;o a Mrs. Nind, of Minnesota, wdiose 
name I saw in some Advocate in connection with 
missionary work, and have made myself a sort of 
member at large of the Woman’s Society, but get 
the missionary paper, The Heathen Wofnan^s Friend, 
right in my own home. I would not be without 
the paper for any thing you could offer of several 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


87 


times its cost. The children are interested in it. 
Edward says it is the best of its kind he ever saw — 
and we take the best from other Churches — and 
since I began to read it a new world has opened 
up to me. I look back upon myself as I was be- 
fore I read the paper, with something of the same 
sort of pity we people beyond the Mississippi look 
upon a New Englander who is wise in his own con- 
ceit, yet never went beyond his own country. In 
my last paper was a report of the anniversary of 
the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, which 
was held in Boston, and the amounts raised and 
work done by women is marvelous The women 
in our Church have raised over $68,000.00. There 
are over fifty thousand ladies who are members of the 
societies, and they have sent out over thirty lady mis- 
sionaries, besides supporting many Bible women — 
readers — about one hundred and fifty, I think, 
iu different places in different lands. The lady 
missionaries are working in schools — have about 
one hundred and forty — orphanages, hospitals, and 
as physicians. I think we are too intelligent a 
class of ladies here in Xenia to be left out of this 
great work. I think that we are too anxious to 
help the cause of our Master to stand with folded 
hands. These women missionaries are doing the 
work which men can not do. No man can reach 
the heathen women. Only women can do this 


88 MISSION WOBK IN XENIA. 

work. I am sure we ladies are ready to help other 
ladies do this work of uplifting our own sex in all 
the world. Because this work can not be done by 
men, is, of itself, argument sufficient to show that 
the Lord intended we should do it ; you see, if we 
fail, the work will not be done at all. There are 
not only thousands of these women to be reached, 
but millions. It is said that there are 800,000,000 
souls in heathenism ; is n’t it safe to say that one- 
half, or about one-half, are women ; and these 
women will be the mothers of all the heathen of 
the next generation. And it is such slow work at 
the very best to reach all these poor creatures.' I 
saw in my paper the other day, an account of one 
day’s work in the life ot one of our missionary 
ladies. She started out in the morning by riding 
two miles to the home of a rich banker, where 
were three women, one his wife, who was learn- 
ing to read. The woman read her lesson, and it 
was followed by a little talk. A boy of six came 
in, dressed like a girl, and called his mother by 
another name, and gave the terms of endearment 
to his aunt. The mother of the boy had lost one 
child, and it was supposed that some one had cast 
an evil eye upon the one who had died. In her 
great love for her child, the mother had dressed 
her boy like a girl, that the evil spirits might be 
deceived, and for the same reason does not appear 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


89 


to notice him, lest he ’ll die. The missionary lady 
told these women about God, who was their God ; 
about Christ, who died for them as he did for us. 
One woman seemed interested, and, as she left them, 
she went on her way praying — so glad that she 
could pray. 

“ The next house she could not enter, for a new 
baby had come, and for three days the mother not only 
does without food, but can see no one. In the third 
house she found several women. They had the 
walls covered with pictures of their gods, and the 
images in every possible niche. They were all in 
new garments, as they had just passed the six 
months of mourning for a relative, and had not 
changed during that whole time the garments they 
had been wearing. The missionary says that if 
she had been one of those missionary women we 
find only in books, she could have opened her 
Bible to just the right place and read words 
fitted for their case. But all these women and 
several children were seized with a great desire to 
know about her watch, chain, clothes, and glasses, 
and as she was a guest in their house, she was for 
a time silent on the subject nearest her heart. At 
last she sang a hymn, and then explained it and 
talked with them about Jesus. At the next place, 
dirty, foul, full of smells, and naked children, she 
began to sing, and about fifty children and women 


90 


MISSION WONK IN XENIA. 


gathered about her. They seemed interested in 
her talk, but, alas! for human plans, some child 
stole a cake and a deafening uproar was raised. 
She rose to depart, but a few of the women tried 
to keep her, but she told them that the next time 
she came they must be more quiet; and this 
woman went on, day after day, all day long like 
this. In this very province of India, where this 
woman lives, are over twenty millions of women 
and girls to be taught, and no man is allowed to 
look upon the face of a heathen woman. Their 
case seems so deplorable. Among these w'omen, 
about one-sixth are widows, which means there an 
outcast, a slave, a thing hated and despised. Many 
of the widows are children, sad, forlorn, hopeless; 
not a thing to look forward to with pleasure. 
About five thousand of them are under nine years 
of age — about like my Ellen — and twenty- three 
thousand are under fourteen. Poor children. We 
know so little about what is going on under our 
feet, and what is worse, we care so little. I pro- 
pose,” added Mrs. Shattuck after a minute’s pause, 

“ I propose that we organize a society. As our 
pastor is responsible for all Church work, I pro- 
pose that we talk this matter over with him, and - 
get him to explain to the people our purpose, plans, 
and tlie relation our society holds to the general 
missionary society. We will have our secretary 


MISSION WOEK IN XENIA. 


91 


appointed for the meeting, ladies ready to go 
through the congregation and get the names of 
those who would like to join, and who would like 
bur paper. We have no other missionary paper in 
the Church, and it ought to have a large circula- 
tion. We can have a nominating committee ap- 
pointed, officers elected, and our first meeting 
called, all in one Sunday evening, and, to my 
mind, it will be the best Sunday evening’s work 
ever done in our Church. Let us pray over this.” 
And all present at that Dorcas Society fell on their 
knees. 

The missionary society was organized. Of all 
the good done by that society we shall never know 
until we stand before the throne of God. Hun- 
dreds of dollars have been sent to aid in the keep- 
ing missionary women in the field. A little famine 
orphan has been taken and is being educated in 
India. There are members of the society who are 
looking forward to the time when they can indi- 
vidually care for orphan children taken from hea- 
thenism. Life members have been made, and for 
this cause women are learning to delight in sacri- 
fice and self-denial. Of the growth, intellectually 
and spiritually, of these ladies, we have no way to 
measure. 

The women most interested in this foreign work 
are the women who work most effectually in the 


92 


MISSION WORK IN XENIA. 


Church where they belong. They care for the 
sick, for the poor, for the sad and lonely ; they 
call on strangers ; they work in the Sabbath-school ; 
they are interested in the. public charities of the 
town where they live. They labor with a broad 
comprehension of the work to be done ; a knowl- 
edge — the outgrowth of the interest and zeal created 
by their work in the Woman’s Foreign Missionary 


cause. 


X. 


Ji)0r:^ • fe • Jl)lus 


I 

%J|OT long ago we heard from the pulpit a 
I 7^ thought something like this: ‘‘I do not he- 
^ lieve in the theory that we Vv^ere ‘ born to 
blush unseen.’ Fit yourselves for something worth 
while in life, and the world will recognize your 
worthiness.” 

We are not in the habit of taking the belief of 
the minister or the dose of the physician without 
giving each due thought, let our confidence in 
pastor or doctor be ever so great. This thought, 
given by this well-beloved pastor, of fitting one’s 
self for one’s sphere, we have turned over and over 
in our mind, and we like it, and believe that only 
those who are really prepared for, and are honestly 
doing their genuine life-work, find any real rest in 
this world. But that the fitting yourself for your 
allotted work always wins the appreciation of mor- 
tals — the approbation of the w^orld — we are inclined 
to doubt. And if it does, what does it avail ? 

Are we any better because our worth is recog- 

93 


94 


BORN TO BLUSH UNSEEN. 


nized? Does it make us better to strive to have 
justice done us by our fellow mortals? In what 
way does the constant thinking of one’s self, and 
the having a constant anxiety to know how one 
looks in the eyes of the world, ennoble us — lift us 
intellectually or spiritually? The having such a 
care or thought is the very thing we have for 
years been trying not to have. 

God has called us to be his soldiers, and our 
great Captain will look out for our rations, clothes, 
honors, and rewards. This is his especial care, and 
with his love and wisdom we know that “ no good 
thing will he withhold from them that walk up- 
rightly.” Our only care should be that we go for- 
ward in the march ; that we obey orders, and do 
the duties given us; and, really, this is the only 
thing in our power, as good soldiers, to do. 

A true soldier does not fret because there , is 
danger that his officers will not lead him aright; 
because he fears that the one in command will not 
appreciate and reward him for doing his duty ; be- 
cause he fears the newspapers will not mention his 
name and praise him ; because his fellow-soldiers 
do not fall before him and cry, “ Great is Diana.” 
He only thinks of self in one way — am I true to 
God and duty ? With the Christian soldier the 
only thought should be, am I doing all that I can, 
spiritually and intellectually, in my effort to take 


BORN TO BLUSH UNSEEN. 


95 


the “steps up to heaveu,” and in helping my 
neighbor up the same golden stairway? Am I 
doing this solely for God’s glory, and the good it 
may do immortal souls ? Am 1 doing my life-work 
with the care only of God’s approbation at last? 
If this is not the motive power, if we are doing 
more than this, there is danger in the saving of 
one’s life to “ lose it.” 

Because the world applauds is no certainty that 
we are doing our work well. We heard a quaint 
brother say, not long ago, “We are praying and 
praying that the Lord ‘ will roll the chariot of sal- 
vation this way,’ and he has. It is right here in 
our midst, and has been this ten years, and every 
member of the Church who is not asleep in the 
chariot, is tinkering it up. It looks too old-fash- 
ioned for some, and they want more style ; some 
have been trying to put on labor-saving attach- 
ments ; and some have no faith in its worth, and 
want the whole chariot remodeled. Our ministers 
are doing all they can to draw the people to look 
at the chariot, but somehow even they seem to 
forget that it is an useless thing bnless it moves 
on. And it ought to move twelve months in the 
year. This beating of drums in the winter season, 
and crying with a loud voice, ‘Lord!’ ‘Lord!’ is 
getting to be an old story with the fly sinners, and 
they ‘ walk into our parlor’ with wary steps. We 


96 


BO BN TO BLUSH UNSEEN. 


are making ' altogether too much noise — creating 
too much sensation to please Him who sometimes 
comes with the ‘ still small voice.’” . 

What is true of Churches is true of individuals. 
When we are about to do a good act, or have done 
a great one, we do not need to “ beat the drums.” 
If we are any thing more than a stalk or leaf — if 
we are a flower, and the fragrance goes off on the 
desert air, it is not lost because no one passes by 
just then to tell us of the good it has done. We 
are not all of God’s universe. God never created 
in vain. 

“ In a valley, centuries ago, 

Gre^v a fern-leaf, green and slender, 

Veining delicate, and fibers tender, 

AVaving when the wind crept dowm so low. 

But no foot of man ere came that w^ay ; 

Earth w'as young, and keeping holiday. 

Useless ? Lost ? There came a thoughtful man 
Searching Nature’s secrets, far and deep ; 
From a fissure in a rocky steep 
He withdrew a stone, o’er w'hich there ran 
Fairy pencilings, a quaint design ; 

Leafage, veining, fibers clear and fine ; 

And the fern’s life lay in every line ! 

So, I think, God hides some souls aw^ay. 

Sweetly to surprise us the last day.” 

The “how” and the “ why ” of the hidden 
things do not belong to us. It may be that at 


BOEN TO BLUSH UNSEEN. 


97 


the la&t day God will “surprise” us with the hid- 
den beauty and fragrance of the lives we have 
known here, it may be not — what matters it ? 

How beautifully Schiller answers the question 
of our trouble, lest life shall pass in silence, 

“ And if it do 

, And never prompt the bray of noisy brass. 

What needs’ t thou rue ? ” 

“ The ocean deeps are mute ; 

The shallows roar ; 

Worth is the ocean — Fame is but the bruit 
Along the shore.” 

Who has not learned that if we trouble our- 
selves here, day by day, about the. recognition of 
our worth, about things which are outside of our- 
selves and our powder, we have neither peace with 
God, self, nor our fellow-man ? 

We will not ask for recognition, but for peace; 
for that peace which brings true rest ; not what 
the world calls rest. It is not laying aside the 
oars and floating onward ; not that which we vainly 
imagine comes with fame or wealth; not that 
which comes Avith a heart cold and indifferent to 
others and the needs of the Church and the world, 
but for that peace of God which passeth under- 
standing. That peace Avhich conies as we struggle 
on through storm and sunshine, through darkness 
and light, through censure, blame, or praise, while 
7 


98 


BORN TO BLUSH UNSEHN \ 


toiling for God, while sowing that others may reap. 
How long before riches, fame, or recognition of our 
worth will bring this peace? How long? 

How inexpressible is this peace, this rest which 
comes to ail hearts who sim23ly “ do the will of 
the Father!” 

To every heart which knows and recognizes its 
own sincerity — and knows of the secret greenness 
hidden, perhaps, beneath the snow over which 
passes the tempests, the winds, and the Winter 
night — and knows that One sees this, the approval 
of that One will bring the peace, aye, even the 
joy, which all the world can never give, and what 
is yet more blessed, all the woidd can not take 
away. . 


XI. 


slr^(ZiS • ©ip. 


“ “^I^ELL, father,” said Mrs. Luther, addressing 
OO her husband, “ what shall we do about the 
♦ presents for Christmas this year ? To be 
sure, the children are too old to hang their stock- 
ings, but somehow, I do n’t like to break up the 
custom of making presents, and having the day like 
other days. AVhat is the state of the finances ? ” 
and the lady laid down the red and white stocking 
that was nearly ready for some little foot, and 
looked at the kind face opposite the -library table. 

“ ‘ The state of the finances,’ my good lady, is in 
rather a depressed condition, but I suppose I can 
let you have a quarter if twenty cents will not 
do,” and Mr. Luther smiled over his little joke. 
“ What were you thinking about getting for the 
children? ‘ The children,’ yes, they will always, 
be ‘ children ’ to us, but there is Martin, six feet 
in his stockings, and more business in his head 
than in all the young men on State Street. Imo- 
gene is actually a woman; gentle and lady-like, 

99 


100 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


and looks as you did at her age,” and the old gen- 
tleman cast a fond look at the wrinkled face and 
gray hairs of his fellow-voyager down life’s rough 
stream. “ I was thinking,” he continued in a mu- 
sing strain, “ that young Stewart comes here quite 
often of late, and Adeline seems very much pleased 
to meet him. Am I right, mother ?” 

“You are as near right as usual,” said the more 
observing parent, in a slightly sarcastic tone, pay- 
ing for the joke of a few minutes before. “ She 
seems glad to see him, but after he has been in 
the house a little while she usually becomes inter- 
ested in something else, and it becomes Imogene’s 
duty to entertain him. I asked her how it hap- 
pened, and she said that, ‘ mission schools and pau- 
pers are more to Imogene’s taste than mine.’ Mr. 
Stewart is a good young man.” 

“ Good as gold, but too conscientious to rise in 
life,” said the more worldly-minded parent. 

Just then a door opened and a lad about twelve 
years old came in for a book, and went back to 
his own room without speaking. AVhen the door 
closed, Mr. Luther said, in a sad tone, “Harvey’s 
loss of voice and his deafness is the greatest trouble 
we have ever experienced. I do n’t know what 
the boy would do if it were not for Elizabeth. She 
is his shadow and his comforter.” 

“Not the greatest sorrow, my dear; you forget 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


101 


Henry,'*’ and tlie mother put her hand against her 
heart, that for twenty years had throbbed with a 
dull pain when came the thought of her first-born 
son, who died just as he was learning to lisp their 
names and delight them with all his sweet baby 
ways. “Harvey’s misfortue is sad, but we have 
our boy, who, with that exception, is all that we 
could ask as a son. He is very happy with his 
books and pets, and, to Elizabeth, he takes delight 
in expressing his thoughts. She says that he tells 
as delightful stories as she finds in her books and 
magazines. It is coming near the close of the 
year, and we must decide upon what periodicals to 
take next year. But, first, what about Christmas?” 

“What do you want, wife? Times are not very 
good, but I have done tolerably well, considering 
the state which the country is in. I have been 
considering the question of making a present to 
Martin of a share of my business, and taking him 
into the firm the first of January. My other boy, 
I think, will be happy as a king with, perhaps, 
Bohn’s Library, as he expressed a great desire to 
own the books which he came across somewhere 
one day not long ago. Good taste, that, for a 
boy of twelve. You know what the girls want 
better than I do.” 

“ Besides the things which I have made them, 
I hardly know what to get. Books would satisfy 


102 


ADELINE’S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


Elizabeth as fully as they do Harvey. Imogene 
asked me, the other day, if I would be willing to 
give her the money which I intended to spend for 
her present, instead of purchasing her any thing. 
The girls were talking about a Christmas tree for the 
mission school, and I judge there is where she would 
expend her money. After Adeline came home from 
school, last June, she said we greatly needed a new 
piano, but has not said any thing about it of late — 
since you sustained that loss by Van El burg. I 
priced the pianos last week, and I find that what 
I want will cost about nine hundred dollars, per- 
haps a little less,” and Mrs. Luther ceased speak- 
ing as the elder daughters came in from a lecture, 
where they had been during the evening. 

■Before separating for the night, Mr. Luther 
said to his daughter, “ Your mother says that 
Imogene had rather have money than a Christmas 
present, and I would like to know if Miss Adeline 
is as avaricious. What does she say ? 

With a profound courtesy, and a little laugh, 
Adeline replied, “Thanks to your liberality, my 
dear papa, my grasping spirit has been overcome. 
My quarterly allowance is ample for all my wants, 
charity and all.” 

“ Your charity ends where it begins,” said the 
elder sister, in low, even tones. “ Only last Sab- 
bath you refused to teach my class in Sabbathr 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


103 


school, and also refused a dollar to help swell the 
amount, so that the class could get the banner this 
month.” 

Adeline was leaving the room without replying, 

. when her father stopped her by saying, “ I am 
sorry to hear that of my daughter. I knew that 
you were not particularly interested in mission 
Avork, and took but little interest in our own 
Church work, but I did not suppose that you would 
refuse a dollar to the Sabbath-school.” 

Adeline’s cheeks flushed, and after a minute’s 
struggle Avith self, she replied, “I am Avilling, 
papa, to give to the Sabbath-school, but not from 
Avrong motives. I knoAV that I am not as earnest 
a Christian as I ought to be, but I am trying to do 
Avhat I see is right. But for Christmas, I do not 
need money, as I have not spent my quarter’s al- 
lowance yet ; the cloak I had last Winter will do 
very well this season, and my furs also. I do not 
ask for any money or for any gift, except your 
love and blessing,” and her eyes filled Avjth tears 
as she bid her parents good-night. 

The two elder sisters in Mr. Luther’s family were 
unlike in almost every respect. Imogene Avas at 
heart selfish and egotistical, anxious to gain the 
good Avill of every one, rather domineering, and 
very ofiicious. If she did a good deed, all her 
. world was aAvare of it. Adeline Avas frank and 


104 


ADELINE’S CHRISTMAS GIFT, 


generous, with that diffidence which made her hide 
her best and deepest feeliugs. If there was any 
side to her life which was not perfect, she was sure 
to show that to the world. She was naturally im- 
pulsive and quick-tempered, while Imogene was 
cool and calculating, always having her sister at 
an advantage. 

Of the younger it could be said, in overcoming 
and in doing, “she hath done what she could,” 
while Imogene never thought of the hidden life, 
if her outward deportment was correct. The father 
never quite understood the frank Adeline, as he 
never quite understood her mother, whom she so 
much resembled. 

When Adeline reached her own room, after 
leaving the library, she bowed in her accustomed 
place with a sob and a whisper, “ O, Savior, help 
me ; I am weak.” The prayer reached the ear of 
Him who is always listening for the cry of the 
needy, and he gave peace and the assurance of 
help in time of need. 

Her room was shared by her little sister, as 
Imogene could not be disturbed in her devotional 
exercises to care for Elizabeth. 

We are privileged to enter with Imogene into 
her room. She smootlied her hair before her glass, 
drew her writing desk near the register, and opened 
her diary. Before she wrote she leaned her head 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


105 


upon her hand, and thought of what she had done 
during the day. At last, with a satisfied air, she 
made the record. From her book-case she took 
“ Faith,” and read a chapter. She read two chap- 
ters in her Bible (which she was reading through 
for the fourth time), and her prayer, which was 
uttered in low, reverential tones, w^as a model of 
elocution and rhetoric. 

The next day Mrs. Luther spoke to Adeline 
concerning the subject discussed by herself and 
husband in regard to the purchase of a piano, say- 
ing, “ Your father thought that I had better men- 
tion it to you, for perhaps you could better suit 
yjDurself in the selection, after testing their qual- 
ities, than could we.” 

The girl threw her arms around her mother’s 
neck, and danced her mother around the room with 
the delight of a girl of eight, instead of eighteen, ex- 
claiming, “ You dear, darling old precious mamma; 
how could you think of any thing so charming? 
I did not complain, because I thought that father 
could not quite afford a new piano. But I had 
almost begun to hate music, the keys rattled so 
horribly, and it is dreadfully out of order. In 
playing the other evening for Mrs. Humphrey, I 
had to strike one key with the force of a black- 
smith in order to make it sound at all, and I was 
afraid she would think that I had the St. Vitus 


106 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


dance. O, you darliug mother, I will enchant 
you all with my music ! ” 

That evening she recorded in her diary. She 
recorded her pleasure felt in the offer of the Christ- 
mas gift ; expressed her gratitude to Him who put 
this pleasant thought into her parents’ hearts ; then, 
her unworthiness of so many blessings, and her 
anxiety to render unto him who gave her life and 
all its gifts. Such innumerable blessings for her, 
while others were needing the ordinary comforts 
of life. As she wrote on, she at last mentioned 
Mary Wentworth’s name, and she recorded the 
sorrow she felt for her friend, who had sustained 
the loss of a lovely home, and the greater loss of 
a loving father. 

After recording these things, she leaned her 
face upon her book for a long time ; she arose and 
walked back and forth across her room time and 
again. At last we find her in a place familiar to 
her — the mercy-seat. The broken, whispered sen- 
tences are : “ Help me to become like my Savior — 
deny self; all is thine; this is only a little thing; 
thy will ; thy glory ; not my pleasure ; more than 
any thing else, to become like thee, O Christ! 
Help, help, O Lord I Kesign myself — forsake self; 
make me a holy, humble disciple of thine, that I 
may be ever ready and anxious to do thy will. 
For Jesus’ sake I would bear the cross.” Then 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


107 


came the victory. “ Thanks be unto thee ; rejoice 
in thy name. Thou art my strong deliverer; the 
joy unspeakable. I do praise thee, O Lord. 
Thou art so good to me, poor me.” 

It was no easy task which this girl had assigned 
herself. It was a heavy cross she had taken, but 
she was learning that Jesus always carries the 
heaviest end of the cross. 

The next day she said to her mother, “I, too, 
have decided that I had rather have money than 
a new piano.” 

“ What is that I hear? ” said her mother, smiling 
and opening her eyes in astonishment. 

“Well, mamma dear, I might as well tell you 
all about it, because I do think that you ought to 
know. Shall I plunge right in ? You remember 
when Mr. AVentworth failed two years ago?” 

“ Yes, I remember, child. Your father thought 
that Mr. AVent worth was a very honorable man. 
They gave up all their property and went into the 
country, or out AYest, or off somewhere. But 
what has that to do with your new piano ? ” 

“Just you wait patiently, ma cliere. You know 
when I w^as at AA^ilbraham that Alary AVentworth 
was my room-mate the first year. I never told 
you how much I owed to her the comfort and hap- 
piness of that first year. You know I joined the 
Church that year — ’t was through her influence — 


108 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


she ’s a saint. She left when her father failed, 
and has only occasionally written me. When I 
graduated last Spring she wrote me the grandest 
letter. 0, mother, she is such a noble girl. After 
I came home I met her on the street, and found 
that after her father died the family came back 
here, and now she has come and is supporting them 
by teaching. I have been at their home away out 
on Mulberry Street ever so many times. INIrs. 
Wentworth is in quite ill health, but she is a sweet 
woman. There are two children, one a girl about 
fourteen, who has had to leave school on account 
of ill health, and the doctors say ‘consumption’ 
unless she can go to Florida this Winter and not 
return to New England until May. Mary had 
been hoping that in a year or two Evangeline 
Avould be able to teach, as she is a remarkably fine 
scholar, and the burden would be less for two. 
But now — do n’t you see, mother? Of course, 
Evangeline must go to Florida, if it takes half of 
my piano money, or all of it. Please do not think 
that I do n’t appreciate your loving, thoughtful- 
ness, but how can I do any thing else? And I 
am so glad I can. O, mother, it is so nice to have 
money, if it is only a little.” 

“Why have you not told me about them be- 
fore this? ” inquired Mrs. Luther. 

“ I did n’t want to trouble them or you. I 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


109 


knew that you had more than you ought to do in 
looking after your own poor, and all the other 
good things you are always doing. Imogene had 
her ‘ mission.’ Besides those that I help are not 
really ‘ poor folks ’ of your sort. I seem to have 
been created for the exact purpose of finding out 
the troubles and cares and burdens of people of 
our own sort, who are just like us, only they 
have n’t money. Every body has a work to do, 
and I could n’t do your or Imogene’s, and some- 
times I fancy that Imogene could n’t do mine. Imo- 
gene can say such comforting things to people in 
trouble, but all I can do is to sit right down and 
cry with them. I feel ashamed of myself, but 1 
can ’t help it, and their troubles lie on my heart 
so heavy I can ’t sleep, but I do n’t know what to 
do for them when ’t is n’t money they want. That 
is the kind I turn over to you or Imogene.” 

“\yhom else have you found in circumstances 
like the Wentworths?” asked her mother, thought- 
fully. 

Adeline looked at her and thought her serious 
face showed displeasure with what she had done, 
and she exclaimed hastily ; “ Do n’t be vexed with 
me, mother. Father gave me the one hundred 
dollars each quarter, and I did not need it quite all 
for clothes, at least I could get along with seventy- 
five dollars, and sometimes less, as school-girls 


no 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


do n’t need to dress like ladies in society. I asked 
father if he cared what I did with my allowance, 
and he said, ‘ no, so long as I did not buy candy 
and spoil my teeth.’ I paid Evangeline’s car-fare 
and bought boots and flannels for her, and some 
things for her mother when I thought they would n’t 
mind ; and there are three or four other families 
where I go and help in the same sort of a way. I 
got acquainted with the girls at Church, and then 
went to their homes. You knew often when I 
went, and the girls have been here. In each of 
the families the husband and father is dead, and, 
mother, it is so hard for a woman to make a living 
for her family, and keep them all real comfortable. 
Of course, you know all these things, but I am 
only beginning to learn them for my very own 
self I have done so little, mother, I thought you 
would n’t care. I would n’t spend a great amount, 
even for charity, without telling you.” 

“ O, my daughter,” and the tears ran down the 
lady’s face ; “my dear girl, you make me happier 
than if I had just gained the knowledge that I 
had fallen heir to an estate of a million.” 

With the approval and aid of her parents, Ad- 
eline had the pleasure that Winter, years and years 
ago, of seeing Evangeline and her mother start for 
the laud of perpetual youth. Both returned in 
the early Summer time with health regained. Evan- 


ADELINE'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 


Ill 


gelioe became a successful teacher, and was a great 
help and comfort to her family, and is now the 
wife of a prominent minister in a Southern State, 
doing good and earnest work for her Master. 

In going the “ Steps up to Heaven,” it some- 
times takes years to mount one. Adeline by that 
one act of self-denial drew very near to her Savior, 
so that she learned then to put her hand in his, 
and all the years since he has led her onward, 
giving a peace and a joy that is more to her than 
could be any earthly gift or reward. The love 
which brings such a joy need never grow dim, 
need never burn less brightly, need never flicker or 
waver, but will glow with a steadier light until 
quenched by the river of death, only to burst forth 
with eternal glory in the city not made with hands, 
but eternal — in the New Jerusalem. 


XII. 


lu]? • ]30;u^l)fe]?s. 


F E is only a country fellow, and I am 
I ashamed to go with him,” said a girl a 
long time ago, when speaking to her 
mother of a young man who had invited her to go 
to a fashionable entertainment. 

“ Why ashamed?” asked her mother. 

“His coat is old-fashioned, his hands are tanned, 
and all the girls in our set laugh at him,” re])lied 
Helen, a feeling of scorn for herself creeping into 
her heart at this lack of independence and dis- 
covery of foolish pride. 

The mother was silent, and after a few minutes 
Helen said, laughingly, “ I suppose you are won- 
dering whether I am your daughter or Florabelle 
Fitz Clair de Lime. I know, mother, what you 
would say, ‘ Hugh Ruggles is well educated, good, 
and sensible.’ Granted. To that I will add, I 
like him real well, and he seems to like me, but 
the girls ask if his * coat was ordered from Paris?’ 
‘Who imported his gloves?’ ‘Was his hat left 
112 


OUR DAUGHTERS. 


113 


over from before the flood?’ and, ‘Who is his 
barber?’ and I am just foolish enough to let them 
make me uncomfortable.” 

“Perhaps my daughter thinks Augustus Aster- 
bilt a more desirable escort,” replied her mother. 
“ His hands are white, and very soft (‘ so is his 
head,’ muttered Helen); his coat is of the latest 
style; his manners are what you girls call ‘beauti- 
ful,’ he can pick up your handkerchief or your 
glove with the grace of a lady. Is he in every 
way a more agreeable companion, my daughter?” 

“As simply an escort he may be more desirable 
than Hugh,” Helen answered, “ but as an acquaint- 
ance, as a friend, Hugh is greatly to be preferred. 
All that Mr. Asterbilt can talk about is his horses, 
the latest party, or the color of his neck-tie. I 
asked him once if he ever read any thing, and he 
said, ‘Aw% yes ; read every one of Mrs. South- 
worth’s books ; very fine ; aw, very fine ; first rate 
books.’ I asked him what was in them, and he 
said, ‘Aw, lovely things ; such scenery, and nar- 
row escapes! Aw, such lovely girls; and, aw, 
they always found the — the — just — aw ! just the 
right lover.’ Oh, mother ! ” and Helen’s tones 
were full of contempt and disgust. After a min- 
ute she added, “ But, after all, mother, one is so 
satisfied when in his carriage. It is the nicest one 
in the city. His horses are beauties. His gloves 
8 


114 


OUR DAUGHTERS. 


are faultless. He is good — no, he is pretty, not good^ 
looking. His home would be — why, mother, it 
would be just lovely ; and to tell you the plain 
truth ” — and the girl turned her blushing face from 
her mother toward the window, and busied herself 
pulling the dead leaves from her plants — “I am 
in a strait ’twixt two. I am quite sure that I must 
decide soon whether I am willing to go through 
life with one of these two friends, and I fear that 
I do not know my own mind.” 

We know, but we are not going to tell, Avhich 
of these two young men Helen chose for a life 
companion. The last time we saw Augustus Aster- 
hilt, he was sitting on the piazza of his new home, 
smoking a cigar and reading a sporting journal. 
He is always found at the horse-races, at the 
theater and opera ; his friends are men whose tastes 
are like his own, but most of them with less money 
than himself. His mornings he sleeps through ; 
his afternoons he spends with boon Companions be- 
hind his fast horses; and his Sundays he spends 
the same as he does his week-days, though they 
have a costly pew in an elegant church. 

Hugh Ruggles has a well-tilled farm, which he 
faithfully superintends. He has improved his leis- 
ure hours in adding stores of wisdom to a well- 
cultivated mind, and is respected by every one in 
the community where he lives, and is beginning 


OUR DA UGHTERS. 


115 


to be quoted as authority on many a subject in 
the State where is his home. The Church acknowl- 
edges him as a pillar, and his pastor knows that 
he can lean on him, and the support will not crumble. 

We wonder how many girls there are who would 
decide as Helen decided. 

So often have we heard girls say, “ But / will 
never marry a poor man.” Not long ago one 
young lady made a remark like that, and a young 
friend replied, “ Neither will I, and work like a 
slave on a plantation.” “ I will not marry a 
farmer,” added a farmer’s daughter, “and culti- 
vate the kitchen-garden, milk the cows, make but- 
ter, bring in wood, do the work for the farm- 
hands, all the cooking, washing, ironing, and 
sewing for a large family ; and, for reward for my 
services, be allowed to ride into town in a farm- 
wagon once in a while ; allowed to look into the 
stores, and perhaps buy such things as must be 
purchased, if a man do n’t know how to buy those 
very things. I think the farmers in our State are 
about like people in semi-civilized countries, where 
they harness the wife with an ox, to plow.” 

With many of our daughters it seems to be the 
ideal life to live without any household duties. 
Life, to them, is made up of one long voyage in a 
beautiful ship, forever sailing on pacific seas; the 
one companion has “beautiful” eyes, “pearly” 


116 


OUR DAUGHTERS. 


teeth, charming manners, and plenty of gold ; the 
air is filled with thrilling music and exquisite fra- 
grance ; the moon constantly shines; the winds 
are balmy, and they are wafted on until — well, 
this goes on forever ; they never think of the end. 

There are many sensible girls in the world, but 
there are a multitude of young ladies, daughters of 
sensible mothers, whose views of life are all wrong. 

AVe heard, only yesterday, one of the sensible, 
intelligent young ladies wliom we know, say, “I 
suppose when I marry I shall be a poor man’s 
wife, and shall have to economize. Thank fortune, 
or I might more truly say, thanks to my mother, 
I know how, and I do n’t dislike it. My greatest 
ambition is to be a good home-keeper, just like my 
mother. Only a few days ago mamma told father 
something which she had heard greatly to his 
credit, and father said — and he looked unutterable 
things toward mamma when be spoke — ‘ I do n’t 
know what man couldn’t succeed in life that had 
you for a helper.’ Do you know, I’d rather my 
husband — if I ever have one — would say that to 
me, when we’ve been married twenty years, than 
to cover me with diamonds. And mamma’s face 
flushed, and the tears came to her eyes, and she 
looked so happy. I know that with all my paint- 
ing, and my music, and botany, and all these 
things that are so much to me, it do n’t look as 


0 UE DA UG STEMS. 


117 


though I should care to be a home-keeper, but I 
can be the nicest kind of a home-keeper and love 
these things too.” 

We need not discuss woman’s rights or Avoman’s 
Avrongs. At the creation God gave us Avomen our 
position, and I have yet to learn of any neAV reve- 
lation on this subject from him. We may each 
one of us thank God that Ave are a Avoman, and 
'Ave Avill try to be one of the highest type — a 
Avomanly Avoman. The natural place for us is as 
man’s help-mate, and it seems as though there 
must be some error in a girl’s education if she 
dislikes household cares and home duties. When 
Ave Avere little, Ave naturally delighted in caring for 
our dolls, having our tea-set, beds for the dolls, and 
enjoyed even the wash-tub, dust-pan, and churn. 
We ne\mr saAV a little boy enjoy such things. He 
ahvays carries the doll Avith the feet up. He uses 
the tub to mix paint in, the churn for a cage for 
little mice, and Avith the dasher and the dust-pan 
invents a cymbal that Avill make his mother long 
for a bit of cotton for her ears. 

We w^ere created for the work assigned us, and 
if, in some unnatural Avay we escape these duties, 
Ave become restless, unhappy creatures, Avith no 
legitimate resting-place for the sole of the foot. 
Happiness always comes Avith faithful performance 
of duty. But it seems as though we, as mothers, 


118 


OUR DAUGHTERS. 


think too much about “ happiness.” We are too 
often impressing upon the minds of our children 
that we are to be looking for this result of our 
life-work, when really we have nothing to do with 
it. AVe are simply to do our duty, and to teach 
our children this, leaving results with Him to whom 
they belong. 

There is many a mother who thinks that though 
she, and though other girls had, and will have, to 
go up life’s hill step by step, that for her daughters 
there will be some royal road, some way, a sort of 
magic steam -elevator, where they can sit, with 
folded hands and closed eyes, until the height is 
gained. Do they ever think that, if such a way 
were possible, the loss of the satisfaction, as each 
step upward is gained, is actually greater than the 
gain of the whole elevation without corresponding 
effort to reach the height? If there could be any 
royal way to the height desired, only the results 
would be obtained, and the entire loss of the sense 
and power of effort, which are the only things 
which count for character, would leave the person 
on the height of no more worth than a senseless 
stick or stone. There are such people in the world, 
but they are nonentities; the world would be just 
as well off without them. Instead of thinking of, 
or desiring, a life of ease and luxury for our chil- 
dren, let us educate them so that every one who 


OUR DAUGHTERS. 


119 


comes under their influence shall be uplifted by 
them spiritually and intellectually. In giving them 
their intellectual training, the moral must not be 
forgotten. Teach them in such a manner that all 
they gain of knowledge shall be transmuted into 
power. In the moral realm it is only prolonged 
and concentrated effort that makes one really great, 
and the same is true of the intellectual life. 

With all the getting Avhich our daughters seek, 
not one should leave out the learning how to make 
the home-life pleasant. This is never learned by the 
daughter who sits in the parlor while the mother 
turns herself into a servant, that the girl need 
never soil her hands with kitchen work. If girls 
are early taught that they have duties in the 
home, the tasks are soon readily and cheerfully 
performed. 

Women find more pleasure in self-sacrifice than 
in any other one thing. If the Savior had been a 
woman, such a life as his would have been much less 
impressive. Noble love assists readily. It does not 
turn its back to difficulties at the outset. And all 
the difiiculties of life God has kindly arranged so 
that, if we do the first task, the second lesson can 
more easily be learned. Beginnings are always 
easy. If work was given us as a curse — which we 
gravely doubt — we only make it greater by kick- 
ing against the pricks. Take it quietly and 


120 


OUR DAUGHTERS. 


bravely. If taken in a right way it always proves 
to be a blessing. As the children say, “ make 
believe” it is agreeable, and the task is a thing of 
pleasure. 

There was a family we once knew, where bone- 
set was the panacea for every ill. If a child com- 
plained of a headache, the bitter herb was steeped 
and a dose given. If the mother felt sleepy and 
stupid, nothing gave a wide-awake feeling like a 
draught of boneset. There was one child who 
never knew a well day, and was also one who was 
always in mischief at home and at school. An 
aunt of the .child, who had no children of her 
own, therefore knew just how to train her sister’s 
children, recommended a dose of boneset for that 
child every time she “ fell from grace” at school. 
It became the regular beverage each night on the 
return from school for that poor little girl. In a 
few weeks boneset lost all its disagreeable taste to 
that child, and twenty years from that time she 
would as soon drink it as any nectar of the gods. 

With all the disagreeable duties of life, if we 
accustom ourselves to do them, and determine that 
duty shall be pleasure, with God’s help we win 
the battle. 

The reading public sees, day after day, accounts 
of the “ extravagance ” and “ ignorance” of young 
women, and the reason that so many young men 


OVR DAUGHTERS. 


121 


are going to ruin is because they can not afford to 
marry the girl of to-day. We have nothing to say 
of the extravagance of the young men, and of their 
unwillingness to deny themselves the foolish, ex- 
pensive habits they have formed. But to the girls 
we would like to say, do not shun the worthy poor 
young man because he is poor ; also do not be afraid 
to let him know that your best dress, which you 
look so well in, you turned wrong side out and 
upside down, and made into the fashion of the day 
from a picture which caught your eye. Or, that 
your pretty hat is made from a lace collar and a 
bit of silk, with a good feather you have re-curled 
several seasons, and this season the hat cost you 
only fifty cents or a dollar. Women know that 
the girls are not extravagant, but the young men 
do not dream of the thousand and one ways a girl 
knows how to look well dressed and have it cost 
but a trifle. 

We have asked young ladies if the gentlemen 
knew how little their clothes cost. “ No, indeed!” 
they all reply, “We make them think our things 
are anfid nice.” For this you get the undeserved 
name of being extravagant. It pays best to be 
frank and perfectly honest about these things, as 
well as in every thing else. 

We love young girls so well, and are so anxious 
for their true happiness, that we would like to en- 


122 


0 UR DA UGHTERS. 


dow a college, and have tlje wisest and most sensible 
women in the world for professors, to teach all the 
girls in our land how to dress economically and 
well, and how to love home-keeping. 


XIII. 


• QLi^d • 


two days could be more unlike than 
Sunday and Monday ? The contrast of the 
quiet, peaceful Sabbath rest, with the hurry 
and disquiet of Monday morning, seemingly never 
of the blessedness of the one reaching over into 
the purgatory of the other. Yet each of these 
days is used to make a clear beginning of the 
week. The other days we contract “ the soil” and 
“ the sin,” and we use these two days for “ wash- 
ing” and for ‘‘repenting.” 

I was thinking this Monday morning of the 
sermon I heard yesterday, about the perfect man. 
It was said in the pulpit yesterday, that we ought 
to have more perfectly developed characters ; and 
the sublime spectacle of the man who embodied 
all the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job, the 
courage of Daniel, with every shining grace of 
every particular saint in all ages, was held up for 
our imitation. 

“Depressing?” Kather, with the mercury at 

123 


124 


HONDA Y AND SUNDA Y. 


ninety-five, and no sleep the night before on ac- 
count of a terrific thunder-storm and dread of a 
cyclone. 

But what a desire I had yesterday for all the 
perfections of all the saints. Being particularly 
quick-tempered, and always anxious to see the end 
when I first touch the beginning, I particularly 
desired to be most like Moses and Job. If, by any 
chemical process, the quicksilver in my nature 
could be taken out, and putty put in, I was willing 
to undergo any amount of physical pain for the 
sake of the results which would follow such an 
operation. 

But this Monday morning I commenced the 
day’s work by picking . up the scattered papers, 
magazines, and books pulled down for the Sunday 
reading, and dropped behind the lounge, on the 
chairs, or under the tables, and the desires of yes- 
terday began to fade way. 

I worked on, gathering the soiled garments 
from the chambers, removing slippers, left “ con- 
venient for next time,” from the middle of the 
room, carrying the barn hat from the parlor table, 
the barn coat from the writing-desk, and putting 
in place the thousand and OTie things which men 
contrive and delight to leave in unheard of places. 
That sermon ! What perfect men there have been 
since Adam was beguiled ! Now, if I were a man 


MONDA Y AND SUN DA Y. 125 

I might hope to become all that the pastor pictured 
yesterday, but as it is, I wonder how long it would 
take of conflict with woman’s duties in life to 
wear off the wind-mill points in my temperament, 
and develop me into that delightful creature, a 
perfect mortal — a “ well rounded character.” Judg- 
ing of the improvement I have made in the past, 
to reach such a standard of perfection, I concluded 
I ought to have been contemporary with Eve and 
lived until the end of time. 

Yesterday I was actually burdened because I 
was so far from any saint mentioned, and the de- 
sire was so great to be just like the oue I most ad- 
mired. To-day I am only amused at the absurdity 
of my ever holding such thoughts, and a “ well 
rounded character,” as described in the sermon, 
seemed the most undesirable character in the world. 

And can it be that I am unlike other mortals, 
because the Monday thoughts are so unlike the 
Sunday’s aims and wishes ? At any rate we shall 
to-day console ourself with the idea that if we to- 
day are worse than others, we were yesterday so 
much better that we shall average about like other 
mortals. 

How easy, yesterday, it would have been to 
tell others of the royal road to perfect develop- 
ment. It would have been like mastering a grief ; 
so easy, except for the one who has the sorrow. 


126 


HONDA Y AND SUN DA Y. 


But, to-day, we hardly believe that there is such a 
road, and if there is, we would advise every woman 
to shun it. 

If there ever was a child trained from her ear- 
liest years to have a symmetrical character, I 
endured that training. The efforts to prune my 
wild nature, to cultivate, round off tlie corners, 
polish, tie up, bend over, train gracefully upon 
trellises, or twist into proper form, were really 
wonderful in parents, elder sisters, maiden aunts, 
and all the friends of the family Avho had no chil- 
dren of their own to practice upon. But all their 
efforts have proved in vain. If yesterday we had 
thought of this, their utter failure in reducing us 
to a dead level, aud making life as humdrum to 
us as it is to others, we should have felt a genuine 
sorrow, and, perhaps, have shed a few tears. But 
to-day we rather exult in the thought that God 
did his part of the work in such a thorough man- 
ner that it could not be undone by mortal, and 
that we have lived to learn that all he requires of 
us is not to try to be like some one else, but graft 
our nature on to the true vine, and live and bear 
fruit in our own natural way. 

The more we think about the “ rounded char- 
acter” of which we heard yesterday, the less we 
desire to be one. Why, it would be as smooth as 
a glass globe, and as uninteresting. It would be 


HONDA Y AND SUNDA Y. 


127 


as tasteless as Monday morning vegetables from a 
city market; no flavor of humanity about it. A 
sort of live automaton. 

Just look at what comes nearest the develop- 
ment of a “ well rounded character” — the proper 
young man or woman. I mean the very proper 
one ; so unenthusiastic, and so polite. Every one 
with the natural perverseness of human nature, 
but with the natural instinct which is given from 
God, turns with relief to the girl tomboy, or to 
the fellow who has the loud, jolly laugh that 
comes when the heart is at peace with self and 
with all the world. 

A life that is governed by human rules to make 
, us “ well rounded,” must be unlovely and unnatu- 
ral. About as much inspiration in such a charac- 
ter, and about as enjoyable as the parlor in a 
fashionable dwelling containing the “regulation” 
articles of furniture. 

Last Fall, while in the waiting room of a depot 
in Providence, a woman, in charge of the room, 
stepped up to us, and with both hands on her 
hips, remarked: “Them chairs are not to be re- 
moved from the wall.” 

We had drawn a hard, cold, black, hair-cloth 
chair from the side of the room to the register, for 
the purpose of warming our chilled feet and fin- 
gers. We looked up in astonishment, and asked 


128 


MONDA Y AND SUNDA Y. 


if this was not the room furnished for the accom- 
modation of the traveling public. 

“ Do n’t you see them rules?” and she pointed 
a dirty finger toward a placard on the opposite 
wall. AVe read : 

“ Do n’t move a chair. 

Do n’t stand in the door. 

Do n’t litter the floor. 

Do n’t touch the windows. 

Do n’t move the screens. 

Gentlemen not allowed in this room. 

Loud talking not allowed. 

Must use the spittoon.” 

AVe sat and looked at the rules. AVe looked 
at the crowd of ladies in the room, some with 
whom we had traveled in company a long distance, 
and as we read that law laid down- for travelers, 
we thought of an unwritten law that is equally 
absurd; the law laid down by so-called fashionable 
society — a law, to many a weak soul, of more 
consequence than the one once written on tablets 
of stone. AVe wonder how this unwritten law 
would look written and posted on the walls in the 
homes where it is observed. 

AVe have seen the fashionable woman scoop less 
than half an hour at a piece of custard pie -with 
a fork, because she dared not open her mouth to 
put in a spoon or the flat edge of a knife, but 
would not hesitate to open it continually to offer 


MONDAY AND SUNDAY. 


129 


accusations full of malice and envy against her 
neighbor. 

Have we not seen the young woman who 
would not speak to the honest toiler, with soiled 
garments and roughened hands, but would go 
alone in the carriage with the wealthy debauchee, 
whose victims were once girls as good and pure 
as she? 

How often -have we seen the kindness offered 
the woman in purple and fine linen, whose gar- 
ments hide an innate, coarse, and vulgar heart, 
while the sweet nature and fine intellect, clothed 
in calico and cotton, is left to suffer in silence, and 
bear the sorrow without this human sympathy I 

Once in a great while a woman, with a hen 
nature, will cackle boastingly, because she has 
broken society’s unwritten code, not dreaming that 
it was circumstances and not genuine goodness 
which made her go out of the usual routine. 

“ Women are weak,” we hear some brother say, 
as he glances, with man’s usual charity, at the 
follies of society. 

The bank clerk sees other men lift their hats to 
the man who stole a fortune — so he plans to be a 
defaulter. 

The honest salesman hears the cry, “ Great is 
Diana ! ” when the merchant passes who has grown 
rich trading with his neighbor’s necessities, and be- 
9 


130 


MONDAY AND SUNDAY. 


comes sharp aud grasping in all his transactions, 
and looks upon gold as the chief good of this life. 

The 2^oliticiau grasps the hand of his wire- 
worker aud tool, and with tears in his eyes, asks 
after the sick child, or the overworked wife, prom- 
ising a bed of roses for them all; but stepping upon 
the shoulders of his man into power, forgets all 
the steps by which he reached his heart’s desire. 

They see the man desirous of fame, who, instead 
of deserving it by being truly great, keeps his name 
before the Associated Press and the newspapers, and 
is carried on sensation’s topmost wave, allowing 
the masses to imagine that he is all the papers 
claim him to be. The young read between the 
lines, and cram for examination-day. Strive to be- 
come men who can make a noise in the world, 
forgetting all about the constant pain of conscious 
ignorance and deceit. 

All of these unwritten law’s the young see ; they 
sink into their hearts and influence all their lives. 
The yoimg lady sees this mighty code, aud forgets 
that genuine good manners are the natural results 
of the fine tints and the graceful lines of beauty 
that are only found in a heart that know^s no self, 
and is real in thought and action. She forgets 
that it is only the mentally strong and the thor- 
oughly good who can be actually independent of 
the law's of fashionable society. 


MONDA Y AND SUNDA T. 


131 


This endless pruning and warping of the young 
would cease, if they were taught that good breed- 
ing consists wholly “In honor preferring one an- 
other.” It is folly to endeavor to make the chil- 
dren as near alike as marbles. It is folly to wish 
ourselves like some saint, or like all the saints of all 
the ages, and lop off one side and add to the other 
until all individuality is gone, and humanity is 
some uncouth and misshaped thing. But adjust 
all the strong points, strengthen the weak ones 
which ought to be strengthened, and make a grand 
character out of our very faults. 

The discipline we have received from our mis- 
takes and follies, the sorrow we have felt for 
wrong-doing, has made us so much of a force as 
we are to-day in the world. We would not con- 
tract the ‘ ‘ soil and sin ” for the sake of the result 
which follows the “washing and repenting,” but 
this result makes us to-day higher than we could 
be if there had never been “any means to such 
an end.” 

This was the Monday’s lesson from the Sunday’s 
sermon. 


XIV. 





T Avas one hot day in August, some time near 
jr the close of the war, that I received a letter 
t from an old friend on Cape Cod, inviting me 
to spend a few months with her. 

I had been teaching school for the past year, 
and though I had found many things in this work 
which were not pleasant or congenial, yet I‘ had 
made up my mind that this kind of labor was to 
be my life-work. I had read the life of Mrs. Jud- 
sou, and had thought that if I only was worthy, 1 
should like to go to foreign lands, by and by, and 
teach those who had never dreamed that there was 
a light for them brighter than the noonday’s sun. 
At any rate,- I was sure that I was fore-ordained 
to spend my days as a teacher of some sort. 

I had just finished the Summer term in the city 
of West, and was glad to bid good-bye to the hot 
brick school-house, and the still more furnace-like 
room under the French roof up the three flights 
132 


A SCROOLMA’AM’S STORY. 


133 


of stairs, and to cease the weary walk over the 
hard dusty pavement four times each day. 

My room w^as a closet-like place, where the view 
from my only window was toward the roofs of 
neighboring houses, and upward to the sky. 
Nights, as I tossed upon my couch, praying for 
rest for my weary body and mind, I was forced to 
look, if I opened my eyes, upon the “ milky way,” 
which w’as actually creamy with the caloric vapors 
of the Summer heat. If I was fortunate enough 
to fall asleep in the midst of my sky-gazing, I 
would dream of green fields, and milk-maids who 
carried full pails upon their heads, but always 
tripped and fell down three flights of stairs, ruin- 
ing all their prospects in life and their best green 
silk gowns. Or if, before slumber came, I chanced 
to get a glimpse of the stars in “Job’s coffin,” 
then the dreams would be of rest at last in the 
one narrow home provided alike for rich and poor, 
and where they for the first time meet on equal 
terms. But even here the dreams took me on and 
on, until in some distant world I was teaching some 
angel with a heavy tongue the conjugation of the 
auxiliary verb Ure, to be; or hearing another 
translate “pro beneficio letale vulnus infiixit” “in- 
flicted a deadly wound for his benefit ! ” and after 
a night spent in such rest I had not gone to my 
daily task with as brave a heart as I ought to 


134 


A SCIIOOLMA’AM’S STORY. 


have had. No wonder I was glad to get that 
letter. 

I hunted up an old Winter garment to make 
into a bathing-dress, and bought a rough straw 
hat to tie over my ears, to keep water out of my 
head and sun off my face, for I fancied that most 
of my time would be spent on and in the water. 
I do n’t know why I was so thoughtful about keep- 
ing the sun from my face, for it was so dark that 
a few shades darker would make no perceptible 
difference. How I had always wished that I was 
a blonde with golden hair and deep blue eyes ; but 
my eyes were not only not blue, but they were 
neither black nor gray, but a variety of dark 
colors, and never looking twice alike. My hair 
was black, coarse, and straight as an Indian’s. It 
was hard to own it to myself, in my younger 
years, but I was not handsome — had never been 
handsome — my own mother, even, feeling no pride 
in my looks from my infancy. And, more than that, 
I had never but once in my life been called hand- 
some. Even the man who loves himself so much 
that he will flatter a lady for the sake of witness- 
ing his power over her, had never had the pre- 
sumption to call me pretty, even in the most in- 
direct way. Once, when I was about thirteen, one 
of the scholars in the high school said that she 
heard our Latin teacher say that I was “ a remark- 


A SCJIOOLMA’AM>S STORY. 


135 


able looking girl” — whatever he may have intended 
by such an observation. 

“ Did he think I was pretty?” I cried, anxious 
for one Avord of praise to come into my life. 

“No, I guess not,” replied my candid school- 
mate ; “ how could he ? But you always have your 
lessons, and I guess he rather likes you ; and you 
kuoAV people we like always look good to us.” 
Seeing the tears of disappointment in my eyes, in 
the goodness of her heart she added, “ But, Helen, 
I think you are sort of splendid looking. If you 
were not such a little thing, and not ahvays so shy 
and quiet, you would make a beautiful queen.” 

That was the nearest a “compliment” I ever 
received. AYhen I went home from school that 
day I Avent directly to the dining-room glass. O, 
dear ! But there was the back parlor glass, with 
its old-fashioned gilt frame, and the little boy and 
girl in the picture at the top ; that mirror always 
“flattered,” I’d heard my mother say. I went 
into the parlor, pushed open all the blinds, dreAV 
back the curtains, and stood before the glass. I 
looked long at my straight hair, my low forehead, 
my chameleon-like eyes, my sharp nose and chin, 
and large mouth. From that day to this there 
has been no personal vanity in regard to my 
looks. 

I packed my trunk, and saying to my few 


136 


A ^SCirOOZMA^AM^jS STORY. 


friends good-bye, started for Cape Cod the second 
week in August. 

I was not a great traveler, having never been 
beyond Massachusetts on the north, Massachusetts 
on the south, Massachusetts on the east, or Mas- 
sachusetts on the west, and the time soon hung 
heavily on my hands. I spoke to the lady who 
sat in front of me, but as soon as I spoke I per- 
ceived that she had a back-bone, and though I 
made a great effort, conversation languished on 
our tongues, and w^e relapsed into silence. 

At Boston I had to change cars, and waited a 
few dreary hours at the then “ Old” Colony De- 
pot, where all the • children of the neighborhood 
came in, ragged, dirty, rough, and coarse, using 
the room for a play-ground, and where their moth- 
ers came and sat to do their darning and patching. 
The end of the rail route was reached in a few 
hours after leaving Boston, but from Hyannis to 
the journey’s end I must go in an old-fashioned 
stage-coach, into which I clambered. 

There w^ere only ten of us inside, and one of the 
ten was a baby whose teeth were coming. I sat 
on the seat with a fat woman and her husband, 
but I did not think of complaining, for it was the 
back seat and next the ocean, of which, from time 
to time, I could get a glimpse or a grand, lonely 
view. On the middle seat were three young men, 


A SCHOOLMAN AM’£! 8T0BY. 


137 


two of whom were going home with the third 
young man, who spoke several times of the “ old 
man” and the “ guv’ner,” and once of his mother 
as the “ old woman.” Facing me, with his back 
to the horses, was a man nearly twenty-five, I 
should think, but with a face so solemn that I 
fancied him constantly repeating to himself the 
“ Dies Irse.” Indeed, for that matter, he looked 
sad and quiet enough to have been the monk of 
Celano himself, and at work composing the mass 
for the dead. Beside him sat a poor, forlorn, 
“washed-out” little woman and a child as forlorn 
looking as the mother who held a little, fretful 
baby. 

It was any thing but a pleasant outlook, or 
more strictly speaking, “in”-look, for a twenty 
miles’ ride in the heat, dust, and sand. 

We had not fairly left Hyannis before the fat 
woman began to ply us all with questions, proba- 
bly for the purpose of writing a book on the origin 
of the races, or the genealogy of the travelers in 
a stage-coach. She commenced with the little 
woman who held the baby ; asked where she was 
from, where she was going, who she was, how long 
her husband had been dead, who were her parents 
and then gave a history to the woman of the 
woman’s grand-parents, whom the fat woman knew, 
which was far from flattering or even interesting. 


138 


A SCHOOLMA’AM^S STORY. 


After she was through with this lesson in cate- 
chetics, she turned to me, saying: “Hum!” in a 
meditative tone; ^'rather little to be traveling 
alone. Come fur?” 

“ About eighty miles,” I answered, rather proud 
of the great distance. The answer produced the 
desired effect, for she exclaimed in amazement, 
looking at me from head to foot: 

“ Du tell I Going fur ? ” 

“ To Chatham,” I answered with less promptness. 

“Du tell! Why, I live there. Is that your 
hum?” 

I said “no,” in a curt tone, then ashamed of 
my rudeness I lavished a smile on her, and added, 
“ I am going on a visit.” 

“ Are ? Why, I know every body in Chatham. 
AVI 10 be you goin’ to see ? ” 

One of the young men nudged his neighbor, 
and they ceased conversation to listen. 

I desired to be “courteous” to this woman, and 
really would have been glad to have “entertained” 
her, hoping she would prove an angel, but how 
could I drag in the names of my friends and have 
them discussed, as I knew this woman would dis- 
cuss them, so I answered, “an old friend.” 

“So! Can’t be so very old, seems to me, un- 
less it ’s your grandmother. AVhat part of the 
country be you from?” 


A jSCHOOLMA^AITS story. 


139 


“ From the city of West,” I replied, after a 
a minute's hesitation. 

“Du tell! Why, IVe got a cousin that lives 
there ; may be you know her. Her name was Eliza 
Ann Perkins, and she married a — a — , who did 
Eliza Ann marry, Daniel ? ” and the woman nudged 
her husband, who awoke from a quiet slumber 
with a great start and loud exclamation of “shoo I” 

“Say, Dauiel, who did Eliza Ann Perkins 
marry? She lives in West, you know, and this ere 
little, horn — ,” here she caught her breath and did 
not finish the word, but again repeated the word 
“ little,” “ this little girl lives there, and may be 
she knows Eliza Ann.” 

“ Daniel” could not help her in her perplexity, 
and after a few more questions, with unsatisfac- 
tory answers, she asked one of the young men to 
close the window as the “air was too strong.” 

The young man gave her a lofty look and went 
on with the conversation with the solemn gentle- 
man in the corner. The fat woman grumbled 
awhile about his impudence, then sank into silence. 

Soon the baby began to cry, the little girl to 
grow tired and grind her elbows into her mother’s 
knees. The solemn gentleman took the little, girl 
into his lap, saying, “ I hold my little girl at home.” 
The child sat there very contentedly, and he en- 
tertained her with stories, and I forgot his former 


140 


A iSOHOOLMA’AirS STORY, 


solemn manner, and when he smiled I actually 
thought him one of the handsomest gentlemen I 
had ever seen. 

After awhile the young men left the coach, 
then the woman and children — the little girl, with 
pockets filled with bonbons — and the husband of 
the fat woman took the middle seat, and I began 
to enjoy the ride. 

Excepting when I could see th6 ocean, the view 
would not be interesting to a person accustomed 
to the sight. 

Sand everywhere ; especially did it pour over the 
coach wheels, like water over a mill-wheel, and 
the grist each ground was not so very dissimilar. 
There were no ledges, no stones, only as we went 
along, we now and then saw great bowlders, which 
may have been left there by some iceberg float- 
ing down ages ago.' Though a sandy district, it 
was no barren waste ; there were many little vil- 
ages along at the numerous harbors, and settle- 
ments around the salt-works where the huge wind- 
mills forced the ocean into tanks, leaving it there 
to get back to its home again the only way possi- 
ble — by going up into cloud-land, and going back 
as a gentle river. 

Very seldom, if the records are true, do pas- 
sengers in a stage-coach maintain such a silence as 
fell upon us. The woman put her head back in 


A £!CH:00ZMA^AM’^ story. 


141 


the corner, closed her eyes, and, after a time, 
opened her mouth in a very unromantic manner 
and, I suppose, must have been asleep. Her hus- 
band put his arn\s upon the coach door, leaned his 
chin upon his arms, and in this graceful manner 
looked upon the beauties of nature as the coach 
rolled slowly along. I, too, looked from the win- 
dow, but after awhile I found myself oftener look- 
ing at the face opposite. The gentleman seemed 
to be in a deep reverie, with his eyes upon some 
place in the distance, and took no notice of the 
country or of us. 

I grew tired of the scenery ; there was no pleas- 
ure in looking at the open countenance beside me, 
I felt in awe of the solemn face opposite. I wished 
I was at my journey’s end, and, without knowing 
it, I sighed. 

Upon hearing, or noticing the sigh, the gentle- 
man looked at me, with the same benevolent smile 
he bestowed upon the little girl, and said: “You 
are growing weary ? ” 

“Just a little,” was the reply, and 1 turned 
resolutely toward the window, and appeared to be 
examining the landscape. 

‘ ‘ The scenery does grow uninteresting on a 
warm August day, to any one but a native of this 
country.” 

I made no reply. 


142 


A SOHO OLMA* AM’S STORY. 


“ The people who live here think this the most 
delightful country in the world.” 

“ Because they have never seen any other 
country, I suppose,” I replied, after a minute’s 
silence. 

“ Indeed, you are mistaken ; most of them have 
seen something of nearly every country where a 
ship sails,” he replied, with one of his beautiful 
smiles. 

“AVhy, who are the people?” I asked. 

“ Sea captains and sea-faring men,” and he told 
me anecdotes of many whom he had met. He 
gave an interesting account of trips he had made 
with them along the Atlantic coast, and of one 
trip to the Mediterranean in a sailing vessel. 

He ran back over the history of the Cape, to 
the time of the first authenticated visit of a white 
person upon the coast of Massachusetts, in 1602. 
He told about the sand dunes farther along on 
the coast, about the pleasure trips from Hyannis 
to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and I really 
felt sorry when the woman awoke and exclaimed, 
“There is the first house in Chatham.” 

What was my surprise, when the coach stopped 
at my friend’s, and Mrs. Raymond came running 
out to meet me, to hear her exclaim, after her 
greeting to me, “And you there too, James!” 
And the stranger alighted and kissed her, and. 


A SCHOOLMA’AM’S STORY. 


143 


without waiting for an introduction to me, said, 
“I miisb see that baby,” and walked up the yard 
into the house. 

So that is your brother. Dr. Oliver, about 
whom I heard so much at Leicester, those last 
years we were at school?” 

“ Why, yes ; did n’t you find out who he was?” 
And I walked toward the house, feeling slightly 
vexed because he did not tell me who he was and 
where he was going. 

We found him tossing and playing with Min- 
nie, but he put lier down when Eosella introduced 
us, and making a profound bow, said, “ I am very 
happy to know your name, and that my stage- 
coach acquaintance is my sister’s friend. I have 
often wished to meet Miss Greenough,” and with 
these few words he turned to the baby again. 

Rosella took me to my room, but while dress- 
ing for tea there was a faint shadow of a pain 
in my heart which I had never felt before. All 
through my school-days I had heard of Rosella’s 
brother ; I had read his letters to his sister ; I bad 
known of his struggle for an education, and his 
self-denial in helping his sister to obtain one also ; 
of his success in his chosen profession ; and here 
he was an old married man, with a little girl of 
his own, and his sister had kept all these things 
from me. Why did I care for this? I was sure 


144 


A 8CH00LMA*AM*S STORY. 


that I could not tell, still I felt wronged because 
I had not been told. 

At tea he talked with his sister and Mr. Ray- 
mond, hardly bestowing a look upon me, and after 
tea walked off with his brother-in-law, and I did 
not see him again until the next morning at 
breakfast. 

That day all the friends and relatives of the 
family called. And every body was brother-in- 
law, or brother, or cousin of his neighbor’s ; and a 
series of invitations were given to go to picnics, 
clam chowders, boat rides, fishing excursions, to 
the “island,” or to “the beach.” I had never 
dreamed of such hospitable people as were these 
on the Cape. I seemed to be the guest of the 
whole village, and each soul made effort to outdo 
his neighbor in kindnesses. 

On Monday we went in a sail-boat off to “the 
island,” to go in bathing where the water was 
deep at the first plunge, and which was my first 
delightful experience of a batli in the ocean. The 
next day was a picnic with friends at the light- 
house grounds. The next, a ride “ into the coun- 
try;” and with what anxiety these people, who 
could with comfort ride upon the roughest ocean 
wave, clambered into the carriage, fearing the 
doctor would not be able to drive the two meek- 
looking horses provided from the village hotel. 


A SCHOOLMA^AM’S STORY. 


145 


When Sunday came, it really was the pleasant- 
est day of the week. The church looked as though 
no one remained at home. There was the gray- 
headed man, so old and feeble that he tottered as 
he walked reverently up the aisle. The matron 
with all her children filled, the pew, and with 
bowed head prayed for the absent husband and 
father, thousands of miles away, with the treach- 
erous ocean between him and his loved ones. The 
wife of the captain, the wives of the owners of 
the many vessels that went from the harbors of 
neighboring cities, dressed in rare India shawls, 
and silks such as a queen might covet, came in 
with faces as free from care as though their 
husbands and sons were only away at the next 
town, and would be at home at night. There 
were many sad faces, and bowed forms clothed in 
mourning, for only the Winter before a vessel had 
been lost at sea, and owner, captain, officers, and 
crew went from this quiet village. The sermons 
we heard there were impressed upon the heart, 
never to be effaced. The man from the pulpit 
preached Christ and him crucified. There was 
that eloquence and earnestness which carried the 
conviction that the speaker lost sight of self, and 
felt that it was “ woe” unless he could help his 
fellow man. 

He told us one day of God’s love — of his won- 
10 


146 


A SCIIOOLMA’AirS STORY. 


derful love to man. He told it in such a way that 
we felt sure that God so loved his children that 
never would he allow one sorrow, one burden to 
come to any heart, unless it needed just that trial 
to jmrify and uplift it. In one sermon he talked 
about patience, and the folly of worrying. If God 
cares for the little insignificant sparrow, will he not 
care for those for whom his Son hath died ? What 
do you gain by worry ? How much, rather, have 
you lost ? Why God tells us to be patient, and 
to take ilo thought of the things of this world — 
no anxious thought — is because he ivants us to be 
happy, and he sees how needless are our anxious 
cares. Another time he told us how to prepare 
for the work and the trials of each day ; new grace 
is needed each morning, for each morning is the 
beginning of a new life. No two days are alike in 
their 'temptations, cares and trials, in their oj^por- 
tunities to do good and to overcome evil. 

I can not tell why these sermons were so im- 
pressed upon my mind. I had heard before, and 
I have heard since, more learned, more eloquent, 
and more pathetic sermons, but never anywhere or 
at any time any which continue to cling to me, 
and he the source of strength and help, like those 
I heard at Cape Cod. 

How ennobling was each service of those Sab- 
baths ! As I look back I do not wonder, for I was 


A SCHOOLMA’AM^S STORY. 


147 


worshiping with heroes and martyrs, though I 
knew it not. 

One week was planned a trip to Hyannis, and 
from there to Martha’s Vineyard and Gay Head. 
But it stormed the day we intended to go, so that 
we were housed, and the only outlook we got was 
through the telescope from the cupola of the house. 
There we sat^ hours each day, watching the ships, 
our friends being able to name some as they passed 
by to New York or Boston harbor. 

That week we spent one day at “ the beach.” 
This is an island, or at low water, a peninsula, which 
is ten miles long, and from half a mile to nearly 
a mile broad, and separated from the mainland by 
a bay, in some places a mile wide. The beach is 
smooth and hard, and in many respects like Gal- 
veston Island in the Gulf of Mexico, which I saw 
years later. We started for our day of picnicking, 
about twenty of the friends whom we had met, 
in a sail-boat, with tents, cooking utensils, and 
hearts full of bright anticipations. The wind was 
not in our favor, and our zigzag journey took us 
much longer than we expected. I was glad when 
we did reach the shore, but felt unequal to the 
task of talking with any one, so made a pretense 
of looking for shells, and wandered across the beach 
to the shore of the ocean. 

After walking along the shore, gathering the 


148 


A SCHOOLMA’AM’S STORY. 


treasures that the waves had left, I saw, at 
what seemed a short distance, a little hut, which 
had been partially hidden by a sand-hill. Suppo- 
sing the island to be uninhabited, I felt consider- 
able curiosity to know who could live here alone, 
and went toward the building. As I drew near I 
saw no signs of life, so I pushed open the door and 
looked in. There was only a bed in the room, 
but in the fire-place lay pine knots ready to kin- 
dle, and a box of matches near by. On looking 
around I found a manuscript pinned to the wall, 
and it was a description of the island, the distance 
from the light-house, and directions of what to do, 
all given for the use of shipwrecked mariners. 

As I was reading the paper and thinking of 
the dangers of the sea, and the kind feeling in hu- 
manity prompting kindnesses like this the world 
Over, a shadow fell across the door-way, and look- 
ing up I saw Doctor Oliver. 

‘ ‘ So you are here meditating upon the w^ays of 
life — and of death, too.” 

I walked out of the hut and looked for the 
crowd I had left, but I could not see any one, 
and could not tell from what direction I came. 

“ Rosella missed you, and sent me on a voj’age 
of discovery,” said the doctor, following me as I 
went toward the shore. 

I said that I was very sorry to trouble him, and 


A SCITOOLMA’AM’S STOJiT. 


149 


I really felt at that minute as though I should 
rather be under obligations for a kindness to any 
one else in the world. He had been very silent 
all the morning, and had not spoken to me, only 
as he was obliged to speak. I did not care for the 
attention of young men ; indeed, their company 
h-ad usually given me very little pleasure, but a man 
as old, as sensible, and intelligent as this gen- 
tleman, who was the brother of my friend, I 
should have liked to treat me as though he 
thought I was the bright, well-educated woman 
that I considered myself to be. I had always 
rather prided myself on my education and gen- 
eral knowledge of what interested thoughtful per- 
sons, and this man, whom I had for years looked 
upon with respect and admiration, had almost ig- 
nored my presence for several days. But during 
the walk back, his earlier friendliness returned, 
and the friends in camp were only found too soon 
for my real pleasure. 

What a wonderful dinner that was ! Our table 
linen was spread on the clean sand, and our plates 
the beautifully tinted quahaug shells. The clam 
chowder was cooked in an iron kettle hung on a 
stick over the fire ; the broiled fish, the stuffed fish 
roasted in the ashes, the oyster patties, the quahaug 
pies, the roasted ducks, and the Saratoga potatoes 
were all cooked as only these Cape Cod housekeepers 


150 


A SCHOOLMA’AIfS STORY. 


know liow to cook such things, and we ate with an 
appetite, such as is only gained by salt-water bath- 
ing and salt-water breezes. 

When we were ready for home the tide was in, 
and as there was no dory, each must wade to the 
boat, or be carried. The men took off their boots 
and stockings, and those who had wives picked 
them up first, carrying them in their arms, making 
a picture surpassing Copley’s Landing of the Pil- 
grims. The men came back for the remaining por- 
tion of the party, and I fell to the care of Doctor 
Oliver. 

I was glad for the first time in my life that I 
was small, and weiglied only one hundred pounds. 
But when he put me in the boat, saying, “ Take 
this lump of vanity,” I declared I wished that I 
weighed three hundred. 

The next day, it was all day on the water, fish- 
ing. The next, shell hunting at “The Island.” 
Each day new pleasures, until the week came for 
me to go home. The day before I was to leave it 
rained. I was really glad to rest, and with a new 
book on the lounge in the library, I was prepared 
to “enter heaven” in the same way as did the 
poet Gray. 

I had read snatches from the book — it was 
“Undine” — and I was in the most fascinating part, 
where the cavalier came through the haunted for- 


y 


A SCJIOOLMA’AJirS STORY. 


151 


est, and met Undine at the fisherman’s hut, and 
loved her, and when they were married, she, for 
the first time, had a soul — just here, when I had 
rather go on with the story than have a call from 
the Queen of Sheba, Doctor Oliver came in. 

We had become really friendly in all these 
weeks, and I felt sure that he thought I knew 
enough and was good enough to be his sister’s 
friend. He found what book I was reading, and 
tried to laugh at me for reading ‘‘fairy stories.” 
But I had found out that w^e liked the same books, 
so he did not annoy me by his ridicule. 

He quoted Emerson to me, and declared he 
was right in saying that it was economy of time 
to read only old and famed books, and he knew 
that I had certainly “ wasted ” (according to Em- 
erson) many valuable hours since I had been at the 
Cape, reading “Enoch Arden,” “ Potiphar Papers,” 
“School-days at Kugby,” “Aurora Leigh” — 
here I stopped him by asking if he would keep a 
woman on Pindar, Martial, Gibbon, Homer, Mil- 
ton, and Shakspeare? 

“ Is such reading what you keep your wife 
meditating over ? ” I at last inquired, determined 
to make him speak of her. 

“It is the way I shall teach my little girl to 
walk,” he replied, laughing. 

“ How old is your little girl now?” I inquired. 


152 


A SCir00L3fA>AM’>S STORY. 


“Really, I do n^t know; not far from thirteen 
or fourteen. But she is small of her age, and not 
very strong, so I have not yet offered her a dose 
of Pindar, or even Homer.” 

“Why, how old are you?” I bluntly asked, 
when he told the child’s age. 

He smiled as he replied, “ Let me see, I must 
be — why, I must be twenty-four. I declare, how 
old I am growing.” 

“ How old is your , is Mrs. Oliver? ” 

“Who? Nellie’s mother?” 

I nodded assent. 

“She must be — really I don’t know — but I 
think she must be nearly forty.” 

I looked at him in amazement. A wife fifteen 
years older than himself. But when was he mar- 
ried ? Of coui*se she was a widow. Remembering 
the fat woman in the stage, I said, “Du tell! but 
when, and how long have you been married ? ” 

He began to laugh. “ So you really did think 
that I was married ? ” 

“Certainly. You’ve called Nellie your little 
girl. Is n’t she your daughter ? ” 

“She is my dead brother’s child, and I board 
with her mother.” 

I began to feel strangely awkward. I had al- 
ways felt free to talk with married men, for I 
knew that they could not imagine that I was fall- 


A SCH00LMA’AM^8 STORY. 


153 


iug in love with them. I had so .often heard my 
brother and his friends laughing about this or that 
girl that was “ smashed” or “over ears in love,” 
until I fancied that all the young men felt if a 
young lady treated them in a frank and friendly 
manner, that she must be in danger of losing her 
heart, so I had always felt a constraint in my man- 
ner when in their company. But here was a man 
with whom I had been as free and frank in con- 
versation as if he had married my sister, or my 
grandmother, and now, all of a sudden, I find 
that he really is one of the young men of whom 
I had always been afraid. I began to meditate a 
retreat from the library, when he said : 

“If I’m not married, I intend to be soon.” 

‘ ‘Ah ! ” said I feeling, I thought, strangely re- 
lieved. Still, there w^as a little dislike to the fact — 
probably fear lest he ’d not get the right wife. 

“Yes, this Fall, I expect.” 

“I’m sure that I congratulate you, and — and, 
I hope you ’ll be very happy.” AYhat did make 
me hesitate in my congratulations, and why 
could n’t I feel more interest in the matter. But 
I added, as though it was to me the most inter- 
esting subject in the world, “ Have you known her 
long?” 

“Yes, five or six years since I first met her. 
She was about fourteen then. Have known a good 


154 


A SCITOOZMA’AM’^ STORY. 


deal about her the last four years,” was his 
reply. 

I began to realize that I was fast losing what 
little interest I had at first in this matter, and I 
thought I must make an effort to get away, lest 
he notice how indifferent I was. Indeed, I felt 
that he already had noticed, for he added, to in- 
cite my curiosity, “ She was a school-mate of 
Rosella’s.” 

‘ ‘ Where ? At Leicester Academy ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then perhaps I know her.” 

“Not very well, I think,” he answered with a 
smile. “Still, she Avas intimate Avith Rosella.” 

“ Rosella had but feAV intimate friends ; I kneAV 
them all ; Avhat is her name ? ” 

He did not reply. I looked up at him, and 
found his eyes looking into mine. 

What Avas it I read there? I looked away in 
confusion, and reached out my hand for my book. 
He also reached for the book, and kept the hand 
that held it, and said, “I think you’ve guessed 
the name. Miss Greenough — dear Helen. From 
the first time I saAV you, at church in Leicester, I 
felt a peculiar interest in you, and from the day 
of your graduation I have loved you. Rosella 
knew this, but she declared that she kneAV you so 
Avell that she kneAV I never could Avin you if I 


A SCHOOLMAN AM STORY. 


155 


sought you as my heart dictated. Besides, I had 
no home I could offer you then. I have now a 
name, a home, and the prospect of ease and com- 
fort for my wife. I can not tell if you love me, 
hut will you let me hope that you can learn to 
care for me — that you can learn to love me?” 

Ah ! it was n’t anxiety lest he should not find 
a suitable wife. I knew I honored him ; I knew 
that I thought him superior to any man I ever had 
met, and that I was sure his equal was not in the 
world. Could it be that I could really love this 
“solemn-looking” man, and give myself into his 
care? “Yes, I believe I really can love you, 
James Oliver,” I thought ; and he read the thought 
in my eyes, only he translated the ‘ ‘ can ” into the 
Avord “do.” He took my face in his hands, and 
gave it an earnest, searching look, saying at last, 
“Mine; my own. And may God do so to me, 
and more also, if I ever bring any thing but peace 
and joy into your life.” 

What a feeling of rest filled my heart. I had 
found a place of refuge. It seemed as though I 
had always known him ; that we had even existed 
in some other world, and I had known him there. 
I felt that there was no other gift on earth for 
Avhich I wished to ask. A noble soul to care for 
me more, to shield me, to love me better than any 
one else in all the world. My independence, my 


156 


A SCHOOLMAN AM’S STORY, 


pride, my self-will, all left me, and with a feeling 
of trust, of thankfulness, I bowed my head upon 
the library table, and my heart was melted into 
one great song of praise. 

Not long after, when Rosella came to call us 
to dinner, she opened her eyes in pretended aston- 
ishment to see me sitting with my hand clasped in 
her brother’s. I did try to withdraw it as she 
opened the door, but it was held with a firm grasp. 
James must needs tell her all, and she smiled when 
she said, “ O, I knew if you only thought that he 
was married, you ’d not be always running away 
from him, but would appear your own honest self. 
I told him to make your acquaintance in the stage 
from Hyannis, for you couldn’t escape then.” 

No more Avalks over the dusty sidewalk ; no 
more climbing stairs to the noisy school-room ; no 
more hearing of classes that were always at the 
beginning of the books ; no more gazing from my 
chamber window upon Job’s Coffin, on sleepless 
nights. Ah ! I had found in that library that Sep- 
tember morning, a different heaven from any I had 
anticipated. 

Is this “heaven” which I have found? Yes, 
I think so. It is a bit of the “ kingdom within.” 
Each year we have known each other we have 
learned to know and love and trust each other bet- 
ter than in the year before. Each year we have 


A SCI£OOLMA>AM’£l STORY, 


157 


been mutual helps to each other in the journey of 
life. Each helps the other intellectually, and each 
helps the other spiritually, also. 

My home is a large, square house, shaded by 
tall elms and climbing vines, in a pretty town near 
Boston. I have never been to Saratoga or New- 
port during the fashionable seasons, but we have 
often been to Cape Cod, to Chatham, to the beach, 
and the “life-saving hut.” And we have sat in 
the old library and talked of past happiness, 
planned for the future, and rejoiced in the pres- 
ent, I all the while wondering how I came to 
make such a mistake, in believing that I was pre- 
destined to make my life-work that of a school- 
ma’am. 



LMOST daily have we heard the questious : 
“ What will Mrs. A. think of me if I do 
\his or that ?” ‘ ‘ What will Mrs. B. think 

if I dress in snch a plain garment?” or “What 
will C. think if we go to such a place, or associ- 
ate with such people ?” And the questioner spends 
more real thought over these questions than he 
ever did over the solution of a problem in Euclid. 

Would it not be more sensible to ask, What 
shall we think of ourselves if we do these things? 
Are we living for ourselves or for our acquain- 
tances? Do we have a pretty home for our own 
comfort, or to gratify those who may occasionally 
enter it? Do we wear plain garments to gratify 
our own quiet taste, or that others may see our 
“good works?” “Do we adorn ourselves to 
please our husbands, or that others may envy us?” 

We should be very much happier in life if we 
would only form a correct idea of what a person 
in our station in life could do, and of what we can 
158 


A SORT OF TO-DAY. 


159 


not consistently do, and then do the right thing, 
regardless of Mrs. Grundy. 

We know this is a hard thing, when we think 
of the way in which we have, from childhood, 
been educated, but if it were not for the cares of 
this world — we forgetting that they are unnecessary 
cares — so many of them — we could rise to a 
freer, nobler, higher, grander life, and we have 
often wished that we could fix a principle within 
us that should make us regard, first of all, duty 
in these matters, and live more within self, 
so that we might attain contentment and real 
pleasure. 

Instead of pleasure, one has only uncomforta- 
bleness when following one to curry the favor of 
a smile or a passing notice, and then having to 
take so much pains as to make it noticeable, to 
tell the remark made to us by “ our particular 
friend, Mrs. Rich.” 

We are often reminded of a picture we once 
saw, where a king sat on an elevated throne ; a 
trifle beneath the throne was a duke holding the 
hem of the king’s garment ; beneath the nobleman 
stood a statesman holding the train of the noble- 
man ; beneath the statesman a man of wealth was 
clinging to the skirts of the one above him, and 
on, and on, others in the same manner with 
graded rank, until the last person in the long. 


160 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


windiDg trail was a beggar holding on to the tat- 
tered skirt of the chimney-sweep. 

It matters not what position of life we may be 
in, we shall find some one, who, whether he really 
is or is not, holds himself somewhat above us ; it 
may be only a step, or it may be so immeasurably 
above, that he has fixed a gulf between that we 
can not cross, and he mentally ridicules ns for 
making the attempt to do so', or for trying to ape 
him on our side of the chasm, and we, even while 
persistently striving to do this, are very uncom- 
fortable, and often positively unhappy. 

We know that wealth, style, or parade, will 
give any one a certain influence in the world, and 
we often see those w^ho will do a wealthy person a 
favor, seeming to consider it an excellent invest- 
ment for personal aggrandisement, but it really 
does not pay to lose one’s self-respect and independ- 
ence for the chance of even gaining a lift up one 
round of the ladder of society. 

With many a woman, most of her troubles in 
life come from her anxiety about others’ opinions 
of her dress and house. When we stop to think 
of this, w^e are ashamed to acknowledge to our- 
selves that we are guilty of s»ich folly, but in our 
hearts we know we are ; we are making a sham- 
life for other people to look at, and such ‘ ‘ other 
people,” too ! AVhy, the very ones for whom we 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


161 


put on this outside show, have so little regard for 
us, that they would, without hesitation, snub us 
if we met them in the presence of some one 
who held the train of one far higher than them- 
selves. 

We have been reading Howells’s story in the 
Atlantic f and we know that there is many a Mr. 
Arbuton in tlie world (only we think the larger 
majority is of the feminine gender), who unhesi- 
tatingly ignores the presence of a friend when in 
the society of those on a higher round of the ladder. 

AYe took up an Eastern paper this morning and 
read: “ J. Q. Homer, who realized $500,000 on 
raised certificates, is but forty years of age, and 
has, heretofore, sustained an enviable reputation. 
The difficulty in his case seems to be extravagance 
beyond his legitimate means. His wife has been 
in the habit of wearing diamonds of many thou- 
sand dollars in value, with dress rich enough to 
correspond.” 

It was the extravagance of Mrs. Homer that 
ruined her husband, morally and financially. I 
was well acquainted with her before marriage, 
and I believe that to-day they would have been 
happy and respected if it had not been for her in- 
ordinate desire to have what her wealthier neigh- 
bors had. She was accustomed to luxury, and, 
though John Homer was a good business man wdien 
11 


162 


A JSTOET OF TO- DAT. 


she married him, he was not rich, and could not 
afford to live as though he was. But he could not 
deny the wife whom he so dearly loved any ex 
pressed wish, be it ever so unreasonable, and now 
he is ruined. He must go through life with heart 
bowed with bitter grief, realizing that he has the 
scorn of all honest men — and all on account of the 
envy and covetousness of his wife. 

They had been married four or five years, when 
I spent a few months with them, and during that 
time these sins grew like the gourd that in a night 
overshadowed Jonah. The flame of wrong desire 
may have been kindled, but the first time I saw 
the blaze was in her expressing a wish for a 
new piano, like one owned by a very wealthy 
friend. 

Mrs. Homer had been making fashionable calls 
one afternoon, and when her husband came to tea, 
he said : 

“ Well, Elva, did you have a pleasant time 
this aft^noon, and were your friends at home ? ” 

“Yes, rather pleasant,” she replied, in an in- 
different tone. “We made five calls,” she added, 
after a pause, “and all were at home but Mrs. 
Ed. Wesson.” 

“ I know but little about that kind of business, 
but, as our black Joe would say, ‘ Tears like ’t was 
a smart day’s job,’” was his laughing reply. 


A STOUT OF TODAY. 


163 


“ I am astonished at your slang,” said Mrs. 
Homer, in a dignified way. 

I had often seen Elva at school, when disturbed 
by troubles, real or imaginary, and I knew that 
•she had met with something this afternoon partic- 
ularly to annoy her. She was usually quite amiable, 
and seldom ^vas unkind by word or look to the 
man whose idol she was. 

Mr. Homer looked hurt at her remark, and 
turned his head toward me to see if I noticed it ; 
but I was, at that minute, very much interested in 
a painting which hung on the opposite wall. 

“There’s the tea-bell,” he said, looking relieved 
that some sound had broken the silence that had 
fallen upon us. 

When we were seated at the table, covered with 
the finest of linen and delicate china, loaded with 
the rarest dainties of the season, Mr. Homer bowed 
his head to thank the Giver of these perfect gifts ; 
and, although Elva bowed her head also, I hardly 
think that she noticed what he said, for her first 
remark, a minute after, ^showed where her thoughts 
had been. 

“I met Mrs. Lincoln on the street this after- 
noon, and she had on an elegant camel’s-hair shawl. 
It made my Paisley look so mean that I felt ashamed 
to stop and speak with her. I saw her look at 
my shawl, and smile sort of pitifully.” 


164 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


Mr. Homer looked at his wife iu astonishment, 
and I, who knew her so well, was surprised that a 
woman who really had every thing so pretty and ele- 
gant, and who knew that her husband was not a 
rich man, could allow herself to have such feelings, 
and more than that, so wound her husband by ex- 
pressing them. 

But, after a few minutes, he replied, “ I am 
sorry that you had such a feeling. I thought, 
when I selected your shawl last Spring, that it was 
very pretty. It is exceedingly fine, of a desirable 
pattern, and not another in the city like it. But, 
my dear, would you exchange shawls with her if 
you also had to take the husband who purchased 
it ? I suppose the reason she married the old man 
was to get good clothes. Poor woman! that is all 
she does get, for he is too selfish to really love any 
one but himself. Would you exchange your 
handsome husband for old Lincoln and all her fine 
things?” and Mr. Homer laughed good natnredly. 

But nothing turned his wife from her wicked 
thoughts. She had allowed that envy, which Job 
says, “ slayeth the silly one,” to enter her heart, 
and it had killed all her true and noble feelings, 
and left her in a wretched condition, worse than 
sickness or poverty could have made her. Soon 
she spoke again : 

“ I called at Mrs. Col. Bent’s, and she has her 


A STORY OF TO-DAY, 


165 


parlors refurnished — elegant velvet carpets, that 
were made for her rooms ; curtains of real lace, 
that never cost a cent less than two thousand dol- 
lars for each window,” and she looked up with a 
trill 111 phaut glance, which said, “ Now do you won- 
der that I am feeling vexed and uncomfortable?” 

“Two thousand dollars a window for curtains! 
Why, Elva, one window would have helped all us 
boys through college, and how many other boys there 
are who are sacrificing, just as Frank and Ned and 
I sacrificed. Two thousand dollars! Six win- 
dows — twelve thousand dollars for curtains! and 
so many poor fellows working themselves into early 
graves to obtain an education. Twelve thousand 
dollars for curtains, and the woman who has them 
never had any acquaintance with the elements and 
laws of her mother tongue. Every time she speaks 
I fancy Murray restless in his coffin. It is dis- 
graceful in me to ask you, but did she have on the 
dress ‘ with lace arranged to stipulate a cape over 
the shoulders?’ Twelve thousand for curtains at 
her parlor windows, and her poor old mother de- 
pendent on the charity of her distant relatives, be- 
cause the old lady reproved her daughter for her 
extravagance and folly ! The children going to 
ruin as fast as their father’s money can aid them 
on the down grade. 0 Elva, one person does not 
get all the good things in this life. I think that 


166 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


they average about as evenly as a good Father can 
distribute them. Would you, with your education, 
talent, and natural refinement, with our well-regu- 
lated home and beautiful baby-boy, change places 
with her?” 

‘ ‘ I have no desire to change places with her, 
but I do wish you to know just how we are liviug.” 

“ I do know,” said Mr. Homer. “This is ex- 
cellent bread, so white, and light and sweet; and 
such butter — real gilt edge — but few city people 
can get it. These preserved oranges and pineapple 
are delicious, and the sponge-cake — ” 

“ How absurd you are,” said Elva, interrupting 
him; “ you know that I did not mean that. You 
may say what you please about Mrs. Bent’s cur- 
tains, they were just perfect, and I hope the day 
Avill come Avhen I can have some just like them. 
If you raise such a cry over her extravagance, I 
do n’t know what you would say to the new things 
at your dear friend Griffin’s. He has just pur- 
chased another picture that cost five thousand 
dollars ; and she had on the loveliest silk — almost 
stands alone — and her children were dressed ele- 
gantly. They are going to Europe soon, and will 
be gone two years. I envy her so much. Just 
think of it; two whole years in Europe!” and 
Elva paused for breath. 

“I’ve seen that picture of Griffin’s, and it is a 


A 8T0RY OF TO-DAY. 


167 


gem. I am not surprised that he was tempted into 
purchasing it, and am glad that he has the ability 
to gratify his taste for the beautiful. I do not call 
them extravagant; they are using the same house 
and furniture that they had when first married. 
His books and pictures would really tempt one to 
covet, if he were not so free with them that his 
friends enjoy them .almost as much as though they 
were their own. I think he can well afibrd' these 
things, for his income is large. And in having 
these things he does not forget whose steward he 
is, and is very ready to do for every good cause 
and every needy person. I know his wife is always 
well dressed, but I ’ve heard you say that she keeps 
her clothes forever, and you know what a really 
economical dress a good silk is. But you need not 
envy them their pictures. We have good ones, 
and some of them rarely fine. Father was a good 
judge, and his pictures were a legacy of which we 
may well be proud. You need envy none of your 
friends their pictures.” 

“ Who talked about envy?” said Mrs. Homer, 
rather sharply. “ I only wanted you to know how 
the people with whom we associate live, and what 
fine things they have.” 

After a minute’s silence she added, in a tone 
that indicated a decision as unalterable as the laws 
of the Medes and Persians, “ I have made up my 


168 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


mind to one thing, and that is, that I must have 
a new piano. Mrs. Kendrick has a new ‘parlor 
grand’ that is perfectly magnificent, and when 1 
thought of her ever playing on our old thing I 
fairly blushed. Why, the keys are actually yellow 
with age, and the frame is so old-fashioned.” 

“ Not so very old-fashioned, my dear,” said Mr. 
Homer, in a wearied and sad tone; “five years 
old last Winter. Who was it that exclaimed when 
it came, ‘ 0, what a beauty ! I shall never tire 
of this?”’ 

“You need not repeat what I was foolish enough 
to say during the honeymoon ; every one says silly 
things then. It is useless to try and turn my 
thoughts from a new piano, for I am determined 
to have one.” 

Nothing more was said by Mr. Homer on the 
subject of the piano, but every time Elva went on 
the street she dragged me in to see, first a “ Chick- 
ering,” then a “ Gorham,” a “ Stein way,” or some 
kind of an “elegant square grand,” till she had 
her mind fixed upon one for twelve hundred dollars. 

Her husband was a merchant, and had been in 
business about ten years, and had a very good in- 
come, for, instead of spending his money to interest 
his acquaintances, he had kept all, except what 
was needed for household expenses, in his business. 
There had been times when he could have spared 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


169 


twelve hundred dollars for his wife, and it would 
not have greatly troubled him, but just uow he 
needed every dollar for his Winter stock of goods, 
and, besides, the money market was tight. But 
when Mrs. Homer had determined to accomplish 
any end, it had been her boast that she never 
failed. 

In a few weeks she said, “ Well, John, when 
will you get the new piano ? ” 

“ New piano ! What does the child mean ?” and 
came the ever.-ready pleasant laugh. 

“ Have you forgotten so soon what I said about 
a piano ? Have you noticed the shabby one in our 
parlor, and that it is never used ? ” said Elva, with 
a queenly air that seemed to say, ‘ ‘ Am I deigning 
to explain this again ? ” and without further expla- 
nation she said ; “I have one selected at Leland’s, 
and wish that to-morrow you would stop and look 
at it.” 

“ I have not thought of purchasing a new 
piano. Ours will do this five years yet, and be- 
sides, I can not spare the money this Fall. AYe 
shall have to be really very economical this Win- 
ter, for we are going to see hard times.” 

“That is just the way; I never wanted any 
great pleasure to come into my life, but you al- 
ways saw reasons why I could not have it. I 
think it a great pity that I. married such a ‘ poor’ 


170 


A STORY OF TO-DAY, 


man. We do n’t begin to live in the style of the 
poorest of our acquaintances, and every body 
knows how mean you are.” 

When Elva allowed her temper to rule her, she 
said many things for which she was afterward sorry. 
Her husband knew this, and always treated her 
as we do a fretful child, never allowing himself to 
answer impatiently when she ’vvas in such a mood, 
and at this time left the room, saying pleasantly, 
“I guess I Avill go down town a little while.” 

She heard him close the street door, knowing 
that he had intended to spend the evening at 
home, and instead of blushing for her really insult- 
ing remark, she said, “ He need not think that 
he can subdue me this way I will have a piano. It 
is all nonsense his crying ‘ hard times ’ and dan- 
ger of his going under. I do n’t believe one word 
of it.” 

I made no reply, hoping that conscience would 
say to her, “ Your husband has always been truth- 
ful with you but she would not let it sleep, but 
amused herself with a book until bed time. She 
did not use ceremony with one who had been her 
room-mate for years at boarding school, so said 
at nine o’clock it was time for us to retire, for she 
wanted to be asleep when John came, that he 
might see that he had not punished her by going 
out to spend the evening. 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


171 


The next morning the breakfast was eaten with- 
out a word from Elva, only as she was obliged to 
speak. At dinner it was the same. Five happy 
years had this couple lived together as one, and that 
day, the wife who had promised to love, cherish, 
and make happy the home of this noble, Christian, 
man, sat at the head bf the table silent, with down- 
cast eyes, the lashes sweeping her cheeks, and a 
grieved look about her mouth, which would have 
been really touching if I had not known the cause 
of it, and thought what a wicked woman she was 
to hurt her husband in this way. 

After he had gone, she said, “ I will just show 
him that I will not yield.” 

Although there was a life-long friendship be- 
tween us, I knew how useless would be words of 
mine, but I said : 

“Is not Mr. Homer right? He knows best 
about his business affairs. Why not wait until an- 
other year for the piano ? 

“ I do n’t care if he is right,” she pettishly ex- 
claimed. “If I yield now, I shall always have to. 
I know how you feel. I Ve heard you talk, but 1 
think a wife has as good a right to have her way 
as her husband has to have his, and I ’m going to 
have a piano as good as Mrs. Kendrick’s.” 

During the afternoon we heard an unusual 
noise in the hall, and, lo ! a new piano had been 


172 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


sent, which was even more elegant than the one 
which she had selected, with a note from her hus- 
band, saying that he had rather fail than see her 
unhappy. 

She saw the old piano depart, but with differ- 
ent feelings from what she anticipated. She really 
had become attached to it, and, besides, the new 
piano caused the other pieces of furniture in the 
room to have a much older look than they had 
before, and the room to have a sort of “pieced 
up” appearance. 

It was but a little while before she thought she 
must have new carpets, and curtains, and then 
new furniture for parlors and chambers. Her hus- 
band consented to the change. He yielded against 
his better judgment the first time, and it was 
easier to do so the next and the next. Then came 
a silver-service, new china, new side-boards, new 
furnishing throughout. Then they must give par- 
ties, they must keep their horses and carriage. 

Three years after I visited her again. They 
had a new house furnished in a costly manner, but 
just like each house on the fashionable street on 
which they lived. The same elegant mirrors, the 
same window-drapery, carpets of equal value, the 
paintings and the statuettes varied a little — about 
the same as the flowers and birds in the conserva- 
tories. Mr. Homer had changed his business, and 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


173 


he looked care-worn and unhappy. There was all 
absence of family worship, and they had left the 
Church to which he had belonged from child- 
hood, and they — or rather she — attended a more 
fashionable place to worship the meek and lowly 
Savior. 

She was as anxious to have her dress or equi- 
page equal or excel that of Mrs. Y., or Mrs. 
Z. , as she had been ten years ago to have a piano 
that would equal Mrs. Kendrick’s. 

I remember with what delight she came home 
one 'day because she had noticed that the gold- 
mounted harness on her horse was finer than that 
belonging to the horse of some one of her acquain- 
tances, as delighted as a child over a toy. And 
this — a luoman! One who had been one of the 
most intelligent girls in the school where w^e at- 
tended — one who made promise of being a woman 
of piety, refinement, and real culture. Ah ! there 
is culture — and culture. The highest type only 
comes from constant communion with the pure 
and holy One ; only from a constant preference 
of higher thoughts to lower thoughts. The cul- 
ture which society gives, or which the schools give — 
this culture alone is only a veneer — it does not alter 
the grain of the wood. 

I do not think Elva ever found any real happi- 
ness in the life she was living. She gave herself no 


174 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


time to devote to her children, and when she met 
them in the park with their nurse, passed them 
with some comment about their clothes. To her 
husband she was no real friend, and they had but 
few thoughts in common. 

Her home, instead of being a sacred refuge for 
herself and family, was a place to adorn for the 
envy of her acquaintances. 

Nearly every evening was spent at some gay place 
of entertainment — party, opera, concert, or recep- 
tion. Her Sabbaths were not the “ cool of the 
the day,” in which she walked and talked with the 
Lord, but were, to her, days created for the pur- 
pose of wearing the heaviest of drab or black silk, 
and the costliest of plain bonnets, which the inge- 
nuity of a French milliner could devise, to a 
church that she invariably spoke of as “ The St. 
Aholiab.” 

It (St. Aholiab) was filled with “ all manner of 
work of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, 
and of the embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and 
in scarlet.” The first Sabbath that I attended that 
Church I left home with her with the hope of 
gaining spiritual strength for the week of tempta- 
tion to follow. As we walked the aisles, over the 
softest of carpets, soft music from the opera of 
‘ ‘ The Barber of Seville ” floated on the perfumed 
air. I bowed my head, and asked for the “daily 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


175 


bread,” ‘‘the manna wliich comes down from 
heaven,” and, O, the organ changed to “ Les Hu- 
genots,” and the words this music brought to my 
mind made me end my petition with a sigh. 

The minister, as he stood before us, looked as 
though he could give us real “ bread,” but all I re- 
member of that sermon, which my friend declared 
to be “just elegant,” were a few sentences which 
I can to-day repeat, but from which I never could 
get any particular benefit. He commenced some- 
thing as follows: “Before the primordial fire-mist 
of the scientific creation began to evolve, . . . 

the atonement was the stand-point from which Je- 
hovah mapped the atlas of immensity and drew 
the diagram of the universe.” . . . “But 

ever and anon the interior divinity flashed forth 
in transfiguring splendors, that asserted and re- 
vealed the strange separateness of the Son of man.” 

Many a time in my life have I gone back in 
my thoughts, to that Sunday at “St. Aholiab” — 
the large church, with its vault above of blue, 
studded with shining stars of gold; in the chancel 
a French Gothic window, with many rare and 
curious devices ; opposite, an Elizabethan window, 
with emblems and symbols ; the name of the donor, 
who made sure of having his name “ writ in the 
Church below,” taking the most prominent place; 
clustered and plain columns, with entablatures of 


176 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


the Doric, Tuscan, and Corinthian orders, supported 
arches beneath what my grandmother would have 
called a gallery, and the whole conglomerate of 
church and service being such a mixture of garish 
architecture and religionism that we were not sur- 
prised at the remark made by Mr. Homer, when 
his wife asked him at dinner why he was not at 
“ the St. Aholiab.” 

His reply was: “I did not feel, to-day, ready 
to take it ’alf and ’alf, but went where I heard 
preached the religion of the old-fashioned kind, such 
as my mother loved. I ’ll go with you to Music 
Hall, to-morrow night, to console 3mu, and to get 
my religion diluted, if you think the dose was too 
strong for me, for I went to hear ‘ Father Taylor’ 
talk to ‘ his boys.’ ” 

“ How rude you are,” was all the reply she 
vouchsafed. 

The envious spirit which first gained a position 
in the heart of my friend, Mrs. Homer, which led 
her, the wife of a young man who had yet to make 
his way in this world, to feel uncomfortable because 
the wife of a rich old man had a better shawl than 
her own, kept her uncomfortable and unhappy 
through life, drove peace and joy from her home, 
and brought in a whole troop of the friends of 
envy — pride, covetousness, selfishness, self-love — to 
sit with her as constant guests. And the item 


A STOUT OF TO-DAT. 


177 


quoted from the Eastern paper shows the sad fate 
to which these guests of her heart brought her 
husband, her children, and herself 

O Elva Homer, you are not so very unlike 
others that I have known, and whom I know 
to-day ! 

Your unoccupied mind took food that contained 
no nourishment, but only the poison that ruined 
you ; and it was not even a slow poison, it sent 
swuft destruction. 

We who know of the sad fate of Mrs. Homer 
will pray that we may conquer our besetting sins 
of pride and envy. They make a poison that 
brings no pleasure in the drinking of it, but is gall 
to the taste, and makes one a foe to one’s self. 

When I think of the week of unrest which I 
spent the last time I visited INIrs. Homer, and 
think of the times I have visited in other homes, 
less beautiful than hers, perhaps, but where was 
found peace, love, goodness, gentleness, meekness, 
long sufferiug, and faith, I am thankful that the 
-wives and the mothers in our land are not all like 
IMrs. Homer. I am glad that with so many women 
Mrs. Grundy is of little importance, and, as women 
see how little comfort she brings, she is growing 
to be less and less cared about, and more seldom 
consulted. That so many women are trying, with 
all their powers, to be noble women, true wives, 
12 . 


178 


A STORY OF TO-DAY. 


and loving, patient mothers — trying with all their 
power to fit themselves for some use in the world, 
knowing that no stone that is ready for use will he 
left without its work to do — for this we are glad. 

If the knowledge of the heavy burden that has 
now come upon Mrs. Homer will help any sister 
who reads her story to cease trying to make life a 
mockery, will aid hei; to pray that life may be true 
and earnest, assist her in answering her own pray- 
ers by plucking even the roots of envy from her 
heart, will help her to act her part in life inde- 
pendently, doing her duty regardless of the opinion 
of the world, and thus gaining the approval of 
“ Our Father,” my story will have accomplished 
its mission. 


xvr. 




NE day, in early Spring, we brought to the 
sitting-room fire an old-fashioned band-box, 
made of thin wood, which was given my 
husband when a little boy by some aged relative, 
and which, among other treasures of his childhood 
days, found its way to our Kansas home. 

After the heat had removed from the box the 
odor of — well, on account of the lining, I will call 
it sanctity, I picked up the box to carry it back 
to the store-room, when I noticed beneath the fancy 
paper lining another lining of newspaper. 

I lifted the torn paper, and saw the name of a 
now prominent Washington correspondent of sev- 
eral Methodist publications. I pulled away a little 
more of the paper, and found that the box was 
lined with a Zion’s Herald of 1844. 

I smiled as I saw an item about a “ donation 
party” in Leominster, Mass., to the “new minis- 
ter,” but I read it all. That item suggested to me 
a “two-pound party” for our new minister, who 

179 


180 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


was coming in a week or two, just after conference, 
and was the cause of a hearty welcome to the new 
pastor and his family, the filling of an empty 
pantry, and the cause of a degree of rest to the 
overworked and over-burdened minister and his 
wife. 

As I looked farther, I found a part of an ar- 
ticle — only a few words : 

“Tempted in all points, ... as ye are.” 
“Touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” “The 
tender sympathy of a physician;” “the tone 
which says, ‘I, too, have suffered.^” “Because of 
this, . . . knows how to heal.” “Thine the 

power. 

I had been weary ; I was tried ; this was com- 
fort coming to me just when I needed it. These 
few words, perhaps written with the prayer that they 
might comfort all who read, brought my Savior still 
nearer to me, not only as the soul’s most familiar 
Friend, but as the sympathizing Comforter in the 
wakeful hours of the night and the weary hours 
of the day — words, may be, that comforted my 
husband’s mother when her first-born was a little 
child, now brought comfort, after coming two 
thousand miles from this mother, to the grand- 
child’s mother as she hushes her own little one — 
words written long before I knew what words 
meant, to help and strengthen me as a Christian 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


181 


woman, and show me how I can help others to 
hear their burdens — words penned in Washing- 
ton, published in Boston in a weekly Church paper, 
to cheer and comfort a soul on the American Desert 
thirty-five years after they were written ! 

O, the constant miracle of this Gospel of Jesus 
Christ ! And next to the blessed Book that teaches 
this Gospel, is the wonderful influence of the re- 
ligious press. And the manner in which this seed 
is sown, aird the result of the sowing ! How often, 
in the last few days, have the thoughts come to 
me, “Ye know not what ye shall be I” and like- 
wise — our words — our acts — we “know not.” 

It is said that seeds, found among the mummies 
embalmed thousands of years ago, have often been 
life-giving; so our words may influence souls long 
after the voice is silent which uttered them. 

A lady who had long been a Sabbath-school 
teacher was one day telling me of her earlier ef- 
forts, failures, mistakes, discouragements, and en- 
couragements in the work. She said that she often 
thought of the little boy in John Falk’s German 
Charity School, and what he one day said. 

After repeating grace at table — “ Come, Lord 
Jesus, be our guest, and bless the food which thou 
hast provided” — looking up, he said, “ AVhy does 
the Lord Jesus never come?” 

“Only believe, my child, and you may be sure 


182 


AFTER MANY DATS. 


that he will come, for he always hears our invi- 
tations,” answered his teacher. 

“ Then I shall place a chair and a plate for 
him,” said the boy. 

Soon there was a knock at the door, and a poor 
man entered, begging for a night’s lodging. He 
Avas Avelcomed to the empty seat the boy had set, 
and the child said, “ I think Jesus could not come 
to-night, so he sent this poor man in his place. 
Is it not so, master? , 

“Yes, my dear boy, that is just it. Every 
cup of Avater, piece of bread, or kind Avord that 
Ave give to the poor, the hungry, the needy, for 
Jesus’ sake, Ave give to him. ‘Inasmuch as ye do 
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
do it unto Christ.’” 

So often, Avhen cast doAvn and discouraged be- 
cause she saAV no result from her Avork as a Sab- 
bath-school teacher, had she thought of the German 
lad’s remark. So often, Avhen Aveary or despond- 
ent, and no inclination to do her allotted task, had 
the Master’s reply encouraged her. 

And she Avent back of her own work as a 
Christian, and gave the experience of the Sabbath- 
school teacher Avho Avas probably the means of 
leading her to Christ. 

“ She Avas a Aveak, delicate little Avoman,” said 
this lady Avho AA^as telling me her experiences. 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


183 


“ with coal-black eyes, and a manner that was 
very impressive. She used to speak to nearly 
every one of her class, during the progress of the 
lesson, in regard to their souls’ salvation. I al- 
ways answered her lightly, and tried to turn the 
subject, but if a Sabbath passed, and she said 
nothing to me on the subject, I felt as though, for 
me, that Sabbath had no interest. I have no 
doubt that oftentimes my teacher felt as though , 
her words made no impression upon me, but, to- 
day, I wish she could look down from glory, where 
she has been these many years, and know the re- 
sult of her faithfulness. After I became a Chris- 
tian, it seemed as though I never could learn to 
walk alone. Every thing wdthin and without me 
rose in opposition to my highest purpose. I had 
no help from any mortal, for I was the youngest 
Christian in the Church, and those with whom I 
was thrown in contact understood me no better 
than they would have understood Greek. I was n’t 
a ‘ born saint,’ but one good soul in that Church 
always prayed for ^ the young Christian,’ and 
seemed to have hopes of my becoming a saint 
some time. He spoke an encouraging word to me 
when he could, and though he knew it not — neither 
did I at that time — without doubt his prayers and 
words had greater influence to keep me near my 
Savior than any other human instrumentality. 


184 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


“ I was only sixteen when I took a class of boys 
.in the Sabbath-school. One was the minister’s son — • 
a wild boy; one a German lad, older than his 
teacher — Carl. Another, the son of a scoffer, and 
others, sons of members of the Church with which 
I was connected. I kept that class for several 
years; studied, worked, and prayed for those boys, 
but no good seemed to result from my labors. I 
loved my boys, they loved me, and often promised 
to become Christians, but w^anted to w^ait for a 
more convenient season. After a few years I mar- 
ried, then we ’went to another city, and there I 
took a class of young ladies. My class constantly 
increased, but none of them became Christians. 
After three years I began to think that I had made 
a mistake, and, as a Sabbath-school teacher, my life 
was a failure. How I prayed for wisdom that I 
might find the right work to do for my Master. 
He had kept me so wonderfully; he had led me 
in such green pastures, by waters so still, my cup 
of earthly joy was always full ; no good thing was 
he withholding from me, and yet I could not seem 
to do any thing for him whom I loved so much. 
A great feeling of discouragement at last crept 
over me, and during this time I went back to my 
old home on a visit. 

“One Sunday evening, in the church where I 
was converted, at a prayer-meeting a young sol- 


AFTER MANY DA Y8. 


185 


dier arose to speak ; it was just about at the close 
of the war, and he was oue of the boys that was 
so long in my first Sabbath-school class. He said, 
‘ I first went into the army without Jesus for my 
guide; I was reckless, I cared for none of these 
holy things, but, yet deep in my heart I cherished 
the words and the prayers of a Sabbath-school 
teacher whom we loved very much. When we 
were in Virginia, one of my comrades began to at- 
tend religious meetings, and at last he became a 
Christian. He urged me to go with him, and I 
went to please him, but soon there was a growing 
interest in my heart for these things, and I sought 
opportunity to attend all the means of grace. The 
hymns were such as you used to sing here, and 
the prayers seemed meant for me. I began to 
read in my Testament, given me by the pastor of 
this Church, and to inquire what I must do to be 
saved. 

“ ‘ At last I found peace, that peace which pass- 
eth all understanding, and my comrade and I told 
others what Christ had done for us. I can not 
begin to tell you how earnest my comrade was ; his 
love, his zeal, his earnestness made every place a 
heaven to our souls. He comforted the weary 
ones, bowed down with the burdens of their life; 
the sick he cared for, and spoke to them of the 
home beyond the river, until they learned to lean 


186 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


hard on him who has promised to go with us through 
the, valley aud the shadow of death. He strength- 
ened the weak and the faltering, and gladdened 
the hearts of older Christians. After a long march 
he would read his little Testament for hours ; aud 
when the others were asleep, I have heard him 
praying and praising God. At the battle of Look- 
out Mountain he was severely wounded ; I had two 
fingers shot from my left hand, and we were car- 
ried to the same hospital. I can T tell you how 
much he suffered, but he was so cheerful, so pa- 
tient, and when death came, he hailed the grim 
messenger with joy. It opened the gate to him 
for eternal blessedness and glory. The last day 
he was with us I sat by his couch, and after I had 
written a letter to his mother, he said, “I must 
bid you good-bye, Robert, I am going home. I 
meant to have done more for Christ. I had hoped 
to do so much, but he knows best; it is all right. 
Be earnest, Robert, be faithful, aud if you ever 
see our old Sabbath-school teacher, tell her that it 
was her words and her influence that helped me 
to Christ.” He went over the river with joy and 
expectation. I see our old Sabbath-school teacher 
here to-night; and my comrade, you all knew him, 
was Carl .’ 

“Imagine my feelings,” continued my friend, 
“ if you can, when I heard the name of that Ger- 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


187 


man lad so long in my first Sabbath-school class, and 
imagine what I felt, to know that it was I to whom 
the soldier-boy referred. And this was not all. 
The poor, old, stricken German mother, in her 
mourning garments, came to me at the close of 
the service and blessed me — me — for what I had 
done for her lad. Ho w^ good God was to let all 
this come to me at this time. I know I ought 
never to have grown weary in well-doing, but I was 
anxious lest I was filling a position which some one 
else could better fill. How good our Father is to 
us all along life’s journey. I went back to my 
Sabbath-school work with renewed interest. I vis- 
ited my scholars, I invited them to my home, I 
talked with them as my old Sabbath-school teacher 
talked to me. When I prayed for them I bowed 
with open class-book before me, and daily asked 
God to bless each one of my class. Soon, one 
after the other began to inquire the way of salva- 
tion. We had a pastor who had a genuine inter- 
est in the young ; he was one who could plainly 
point to others the way of salvation, and from that 
class of fourteen ten came to the Savior and united 
with the Church during his pastorate. 

“ I used to think,” continued my friend after 
a short silence, “that ‘one of the least of these’ 
always meant children, but it means much more 
than that to me now. To me it is all the poor. 


188 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


the sad, the neglected, the strangers, the weary 
and the heavy laden, and we never know who the 
heavy-laden are. 

“ One Sabbath I spoke with a stranger, who sat 
near me in Church, and as we went down the aisle 
together I asked where she lived, and introduced 
her to others. This lady^nd her husband became 
the most influential people of our Church, and 
that Sunday when I spoke she was so home-sick, 
so lonely, and felt herself so among strangers that 
she had decided in her mind that she would naver 
again come to worship with us. She had every 
appearance of being any thing but one of God’s 
little ones, but rare laces and heavy silks do not 
always cover a joyous heart. 

“We do not know what our words will do, 
neither do w’e know what the result will be if we 
fail to say the right words. 

“About the time I became a Christian, I heard 
my mother and a friend of mother’s talking about 
the son of this friend, who w^as about my age, but no 
friend of mine. The friend said, ‘ Edward thinks 
he is a Christian, and wants to join the Church, 
but his father and I both think that he does not 
understand himself. We talked with Deacon 
Grant, and he says that Edward is much too 
young to unite with the Church. I am inclined 
to think that I shall urge him to wait a few 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


189 


years longer, and then he will understand what 
he is about. Bat, of course, if he imists, we 
shall not oppose him. His father thinks that if 
he should have strong religious influences thrown 
around him, as he might if he went into the 
Church, they would tend to handicap him in his 
race in life, and instead of his becoming a brilliant 
lawyer, and going in company with his father — 
as we hope he will — lie might turn out only the 
stupidest of stupid, prosy ministers. I think it is 
all very nice for young people to go into the 
Church, especially girls, but somehow I think it 
hampers a man in his business relations with the 
world.’ 

‘‘So Edward was held back, and he Avent back 
farther than his parents expected. He began to 
associate with a different class of boys, and the re- 
sult, after many days of such training by his 
Christian parents, was, that he became, instead of 
the ‘ eminent lawyer ’ his parents so fondly hoped, 
or even the ‘stupid minister’ which they feared, 
a gambler and a thief, and is now serving out a 
long term of years in the State prison.” 

After my friend ceased telling these experiences 
which had come into her life, we sat thinking over 
these things, and at last I said : 

“So often in life I have seen the reward for 
evil or for good come. Sometimes the ‘ many 


190 


AFTER MANY DATS. 


days ’ seem long, but I suppose they are as ‘ few ’ 
as our Father can make them, and work out in us 
the result he desires. To have patience is the 
hardest lesson I have to learn.” 

Another friend who had listened to the conver- 
sation, all the time busily at work painting on a 
panel a bunch of apple-blossoms, turned toward 
us, with her palette still held by her thumb, and 
running the handle of her brush across her hand 
as if writing a message, said she had a story to 
tell, if we cared to listen. 

I took another baby’s sock from the mending- 
basket, and our artist friend, who w^as a capital 
story-teller, began, as she gave her brush a wave 
in the air, with a funny little flourish and laugh : 

“The talk about ‘after many days’ sent me 
back to one very pleasant time nearly twenty-flve 
years ago, when I was a little girl. It was one 
Christmas time at my Grandmother Lyman’s. 
Every Christmas she had this text, made in ever- 
green, over the parlor mantle — ‘ Cast thy bread 
upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after tnany 
days.’ 

“ One of the children asked grandmother why 
she had that text made every year, and then we 
all began to tease for a story, and if I can, I will 
tell it about as it all happened. I remember it 
well; it seems only a few days ago. I was a 


AFTER MA NY DA YS. 


191 


little child then ; now I am a woman. Mother was 
then no older than I am now, and now she is in 
heaven. Grandma called me that evening to a 
hassock at her feet. She loved me so much. I 
remember just her loving look toward me, as she 
said, ‘ Well, well, if you must have a story, I 
’spose you must. Here, Mabel, sit down here at 
my feet. But, it really ’pears to me that you ’ve 
had enough for one Christmas evenin’. Why, 
when I was a girl, we did n’t have no tree or any 
thing at Christmas ; but I ’ve heard my mother tell 
how they used, in London, when she was a girl, 
go about the streets singin’ carols Christmas night. 
I wish the boy singers would do that now. I 
should like to hear them just as my mother did. To 
be sure, it is beautiful to live now, but a few of the 
good old things ought never to have been left out.’ 

“ ‘Tell us a little about the carols before you 
tell the story, grandmamma,’ said one of the boys. 
‘ When were the first carols sung ? ’ 

“ ‘ On Bethlehem’s plains, I think, dearie,’ said 
grandmother, looking over her spectacles to Cousin 
Edward. ‘ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace,’ ‘ was the first carol, I think. My mother 
used to sing the carol the London boys sang, and I 
noticed the same in that beautiful little primer 
song-book Aunt Maria bought for Bessie. The 
words are changed some, but the tune is the same. 


192 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


Mabel, dear, can ’t yon go to the pianny, and let 
all the little ones sing, 

‘ ‘ I saw three ships come sailin’ in 
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.’ ” 

“ I ran to the piano, and great and small, grand- 
children, and great-grandchildren, grandmother, 
mother, and all of us sang the quaint, musical 
tune and words that my grandmother used, when 
a child, to hear her mother sing. Grandmother 
told us the second, third, and fourth verses, which 
re2)eated as did the first verse, 

‘ And all the saints in heaven shall sing. 

On Christmas day, on Christmas day.’ 

“The third verse, 

‘ And all the souls on earth shall sing. 

On Christmas day.’ 

“And the fourth,” and our friend, who had a 
clear, sweet voice, sang the whole. 

“ ‘ And all the bells on earth shall ring. 

On Christmas day, on Christmas day. 

And all the bells on earth shall ring. 

On Christmas day in the morning.’ 

“Grandmother wiped her spectacles as we chil- 
dren crowded around her again. My little sister 
said, ‘ It was pitty; dranma ; I like free ships on 
Drismas day.’ 

“‘Yes, my little dear, it -is pretty. It just 
springs from the heart.’ 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


193 


“ ‘ I do n’t think any body ever wrote that,’ said 
a cousin, who was a great lover of music and po- 
etry. ‘ It is like Topsy, “ if grow ’d.”’ 

“ ‘ Yes, dearie, you are right; it was born from 
the soul, full grown, just as the Magnificat leaped 
from the heart of the Virgin.’ 

“ ‘ Yes, dranma, but we do n’t know um. Tell 
us pitty story ; a Drismas story, dranma.’ 

“O, how longingly and lovingly I look back to 
that Christmas time when we gathered around the 
dear grandmother with her beautiful face, her 
sweet, tremulous voice, her large eyes full of a 
pathetic beauty, and her wonderfully soft hand 
that caressingly touched our heads, I doubt not in 
solemn benediction. Dearly she loved all the dear 
ones she was so soon to leave, and dearly we all 
loved her whose life was love itself. 

“ Is there no royal way to the same loving life 
my grandmother led? Is it years only, that broad- 
ens the river, and makes it more beautiful, more 
grand as it nears the sea ? Is heavenly sweetness, 
strength of mind and of will, joy of spirit only 
found by long years of patient self-sacrifice and 
self-denial ? 

‘ ‘ Why do we not learn the lesson sooner, that we 
may the sooner have the calm in the heart ; that 
the sooner the winds and tempests shall be stilled, 

the north wind blow not, and the great calm come 
13 


194 


AFTER 31 ANY DAYS. 


down? I look back — and what? Have I prac- 
ticed self-denial and self-sacrifice ? la it easier for 
me to deny self now than it was years ago ? A 
little, perhaps. But the years have come and gone, 
like the Phoenix, each new year arising from the 
ashes of the old ; and the years have been almost 
as near alike as were the birds, father and son. 
Then — as I look back — the river of life was not 
wide, and the waters were shallow ; the banks 
were bright with beauty, the air filled with per- 
fume and music ; I floated along so smoothly, anol 
the' years went by so slowly. Now, the waters 
rush me along. I stretch out my hands to catch 
the over-hanging branches, that I may linger, if 
but for a day — but all in vain. The open sea 
seems just ahead. What am I taking there, beauty 
or ashes? 

But grandmother’s story ! Can I, after all, go 
back in memory and imagination, and take up that 
story as grandmother told it, nearly a quarter of a 
century ago ? 

“ When your gran’ther and I were young, he 
kept store in Sterling. Of course, just commencin’ 
life, I wanted to help him save, so we lived in 
three rooms right over the store, and I used to go 
down and tend while he went up to dinner or su})- 
per. We always had a sort of table outside the 
store door, and your gran’ther used to keep a little 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


195 


of every thing on it, sich as he kept in the store. 
One night in December, I went down as usual, 
and, as I glanced out through the glass doors, I 
noticed that your gran’ther had laid some turkeys 
and chickens, all dressed, good and clean, right on 
top. It was just b'efore Christmas, and he wanted 
to tempt some one to buy. But when he came 
down stairs, says I to him, says I, ‘ I think you 
are risky to put them turkeys right handy for some 
one to steal’ 

“ ‘ Why, Dorothy,’ says he, ‘ ain ’t you gettin’ 
pesky careful all of a sudden ? Who ever heard 
of any one stealin’ in Sterling ? I’m afraid 
that you are getting to think bad of your fellow 
creturs. I ’ll take the risk of my losing ’em that 
way ; I ’m enough site more feard ’t will turn warm, 
and they ’ll all spile.’ 

“ I went off up stairs to eat my supper, clear off 
the table, and wash the dishes. After I ’d taken 
my knittin’, I was sort of lonesome, so I went 
down to set ’long of your gran’ther, just as I used 
to do often when there was n’t much goin’ on. 
Your gran’ther never sold any grog ; his father Avas 
a minister, and his brother Silas Avas a minister, 
and his brother Enoch a deacon doAvn in Boston ; 
and as we had n’t any liquor, our store never had 
loafers spittin’ around, as they used to do over to 
Goulding’s, at the corner. So it Avas quite proper 


196 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 


for me to go down and set with your gran’ther. 
Sometimes a neighbor, or one of the deacons in 
the Church — your gran’ther Avas a deacon after- 
wards — would come in and set awhile ; but that 
night it was cold and dark, and Ave tAvo sat alone, 
except now and then a customer, or some one for 
their mail, for the post-office Avas OA^er in one corner 
of the store. Just as your gran’ther got ready to 
shut up for the night, a man come in and inquired 
the price of one of them chickens, and your gran’- 
ther told him. The man looked at him Avith great 
hungry eyes, hesitated a moment or tAvo, and then 
AA'eut out. We saAV him Avalk by on the outside 
once or twice, but he did n’t come in again. A 
few nights after, the night before Christmas, AAdiile 
I AA^as Avashing my supper dishes, your grau’ther 
came runuin’ up stairs, and says he : 

“‘Run right doAvn, Dolly, and tend store; 
that man has stole a turkey, and I Avant to ketch 
him.’ 

“‘Do n’t do it, Stephen; don’t do it,’ says I, 
all in a tremble. But he only says, says he, ‘Why 
how you talk, Debby,’ and grabbed his coat and 
hat, and run. 

“Well, he Avas gone may be a full hour, Avhen 
he come back, all flustrated and confused like. I 
said, says I, ‘Did you ketch him, Stephen?’ 

“‘Yes,’ says he. 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


197 


“ ‘Did you get your turkey?’ says I. 

“ ‘ ’T wau’t nothiu’ but a chicken,’ says he. 

“‘Well!’ says I, kinder sharp, ’cause I was 
nervous and anxious like, ‘ can ’t you tell me about 
it without so many words?’ 

“‘Yes, Debby, I can,’ says he. But your 
gran’ther sot and sot, and did n’t speak a word, 
and I had at last to say, ‘ Well 1’ Then he spoke 
up, and says lie : 

“ ‘I ’ll tell you what, Debby, I never want to 
see any thing like it again. The man was that 
new carpenter that has 'moved into the Fosgate 
house, down by the cross-roads. I got up to him 
just as he was goin’ up to his house, and I put 
my hand on his arm, and I says to him, says I, 
‘You can come with me, young man; there is a 
place for thieves down to Worcester, in the county 
jail.’ He tried to pull away from me just at first, 
and then — you oughter have seen him, Debby. 
He dropped the chicken; ’t wan’t nothin’ but one 
of Aaron Smith’s poor, little, miserable old hens, 
but he dropped it, and, says he, “Don’t sj^eak 
loud, for God’s sake. My wife will hear you. 
She is sick ; the children are sick, and they are 
sick because they can ’t get nothin’ to eat. We 
could n’t tell folks how poor we was. We do n’t 
know any one here ; I can ’t get work, and I hain’t 
eat nothin’ but one pertater for three days. My 


198 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


wife and my babies have eaten their last morsel 
of bread. There is not a thing to eat in the house. 
There is nothing for them to-morrow nor the next 
day, nor the next. But I Tn ruined now. If I 
go to jail it will kill my wife. O, my wife ! my 
pour, little Mary!’ and, Debby, he burst out crying, 
and I declare for ’t, I cried too, like a great calf.’ 

“ Your grau’ther always was a tender-hearted 
man, and he put that last on, ’cause he saw tears 
in my eyes, and he did n’t like me ever to bear 
any trouble. 

“‘Well! Stephen,’ says I to him, ‘what are 
you goin’ to do ? ’ 

“ ‘ 1 do n’t know of but one thing to do, Debby,’ 
says he, ‘ and that is to do accordin’ to Scripture — 
just as you ’d be done by.’ 

“‘But,’ says I, ‘that do n’t apply to thieves.’ 

‘“I guess, Debby, it means all of God’s crea- 
tures. Did n’t he say to a sinner, ‘ Go and sin no 
more ?’ It is drefful easy to read the Bible, and to 
wish to be good, and to say, Lord, Xord/’ but to 
my thinkin’, beautiful talkin’ and beautiful thinkin’ 
ain ’t walking the road. And, Debby, just to do 
right once in a while, when the spasm comes on, 
do n’t get us fur on the road. We’d never get in 
sight of the kingdom if we only went by jerks. 
You know, Debby, that I do n’t believe in nag- 
ging the women-folks at home, and then putting a 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 


199 


silver dollar in the contribution box on Sunday. 
I ain ’t as good as I ought to be — your grau’ther 
lucts the best man I ever see — ^but I do try, Debby, 
to live up to my light.’ 

“And what did your gran’ther do but go right 
to work and fill a great basket with meal, and per- 
taters, and tea, and sugar, and pork, and put it 
on a sled, and that very night haul it down to that 
family ? When he came back, says I : 

“Wall! Stephen, I hope you feel better.’ 
Your gran’ther always was better than I was. I 
was so anxious to save against a rainy day, that I 
should liave growed close and stingy, I ’m afeared 
if it had n’t been for your gran’ther. But he was 
ahvmjs just so good. He was not only always kind 
and pleasant, and patient with me, but he was 
just so good to every body. I do think, chil- 
dren, that the Lord Jesus walked with your gran- 
’ther just as he walked with the disciples to Em- 
maus. He seemed to always have Him near. 
Everybody liked your gran’ther. The poor and 
the downcast, and the burdened used to come to 
him for help and comfort, and he never turned 
one empty away. He did n’t do his goodness all 
up in a lump at Christmas or New-year, and throw 
it out in one chunk, and he never made resolu- 
tions enough at one time about being good to 
spread over his whole life. He took his religion 


200 


AFTER MANY DA YS. , 


right with him every day, and every hour of the 
day, and he took it into his store, and he always 
brought it home with him. I ’m telling you, chil- 
dren, what kind of a man your gran’ther was — 
you know why. I ’d like all my boys to be like 
him. Why, he was so tender-hearted that he even 
once picked up the w^ettest, forlornest looking dog, 
that was whining outside, and he washed it, and 
warmed it, and fed it and made it comfortable — 
and it was after your gran’ther had done a hard 
day’s work, too. 

“ Well, as I was saying, your gran’ther was 
good to that family, and found work for the man 
so that he could help himself, and he never told a 
soul how he first met the carpenter. That was 
another thing about your gran’ther, he ne^mr 
sounded a trumpet when he went about doin’ good. 
I suppose ’t is because I ’m a woman, but I never 
could do a good thing but I wanted to cackle and 
let all the other hens know what I ’d done. 

“Well, one night, just ten years after, and just 
such a cold night, and the night before Christmas, 
too, we ’d sot up late to put some things in the 
children’s stockings — some raisins, and nuts, and 
candy, and I’d dressed two dolls in blue dresses 
and black silk aprons, for Harriet and Hannah, 
and we’d got Sammy a new sled, and I’d knit 
him some red mittens and a long scarf to tie round 


j\FTER MANY DA YS. 


201 


his neck and over .his ears. Well, as I was sayiu’, 
that night we were up late, and when we did go 
to sleep, we slept sound. 

“ The first I knew, I waked up e’en a-most sti- 
fled with smoke, and we jumped up and found 
that the store was on fire, and the stairs on fire, 
too. I was just stupefied, but heard yoilr gran- 
’ther say, ‘ O, Lord, our only hope ! ’ and just then 
some one outside cried, and we run to the wiudoAV. 
There were some of the neighbors a hollerin’ and 
shoutin’. They went and got a ladder, and your 
gran’ther made me go first, and said he ’d bring 
the children. We were both so sort of stupefied 
that we forgot Sammy, who slept in the little room 
at the liead of the stairs. Your gran’ther brought 
Hannah and Harriet in his arms, and started back 
to call Sammy, who was ’most ten years old then. 
But just as he got half-way up the ladder it broke, 
and he got dreadfully hurt in the fall. I cried out, 
‘ O, my boy ! O, my boy!’ and tried to rush into 
the store with the vain hope of some way savin’ 
my boy. The people held me back, and I fainted 
clear away — the only time in my life. 

“ When I came to there was iny Sammy in 
somebody’s great coat a-rubbin’ my hands.” 

‘‘Was that my father?” I asked grandmother, 
greatly excited over the story. 

“ Yes, dearie, that was your father ; my Sammy.” 


202 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 


My little cousin asked where she was then, and 
her brother, almost four years old, answered with 
tlie satisfactory way of his sex, “ Ho, that was afore 
you ’d corned.” 

I do n’t know but graudmother would have 
stopped here, but my brother Fred wanted to 
know who the man was that saved father’s life. 

“Well, children, I ’spose you ought to know 
who it was. I ’ll tell you how he saved Sammy. 
The man climbed on the shed away ’round on the 
back-side of the store, and broke in a Avindow, 
and wrapped Sammy in his coat just as the flames 
caught the bedclothes, and brought him doAvn 
in his arms — and, children, the man Avas the one 
Avho stole the chicken. 

“ When I could speak, I said to the man, ‘Hoav 
can I pay you? You ’\"e saved my boy from 
death ?’ 

“ ‘ The boy’s father saved me and mine from 
Avorse than death,’ he Avhispered, stooping over my 
face. ‘I have made one payment of the great 
debt I owe him; one crumb of the bread he so 
freely scattered on the Avaters — one crumb noAV re- 
turns to him — after many days.’ ” 


XVII. 


Ji)o©^s • ^©2? • il)© • 


J F, as we were taught in our school days, the 
educated man, when compared with one who 
is illiterate, shows nearly the same contrast 
as that which exists between a person blind and 
one who can see; if the possession of a cultivated 
mind places one above the little vexations of daily 
life; if it elevates the aims and purposes; if it 
gives latent power amid adverse influences; if it 
is an antidote to avarice, false pride, and pretense, 
there is nothing which can so help parents in this 
work of training their children as good books and 
good periodicals in the home — there is nothing which 
can so help the Sunday-school worker in training 
the children in the noblest and highest way as 
really good Sunday-school literature. 

In the Sunday-schools in our country are many 
children who there receive nearly all the religious 
training that they will ever receive, and who there 
receive by far the larger share of what intellectual 
culture will be bestowed upon them. They will 
203 


204 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


be sent to the public school, oft and on, as it is 
convenient for parent, or pleasant for the child, 
and learn how to read, write, and a little in arith- 
metic, a little in grammar — and that is all. At 
home they hear about the neighborhood gossip, the 
crops, the stock, and the personal affairs of their 
acquaintances. The reading matter set before them 
is mostly the neighborhood news of the county 
paper, with a love story on the “patent” outside, 
and to tlie Sunday-school worker who feels a down- 
right interest in the children and young, is left all 
the work of molding and training spiritually and 
intellectually these for whom no one else cares ; 
and to the question, “ What shall we give these 
children to read?” come answers from other work- 
ers, as puzzled over the subject as is the one who 
asks the question. 

All sorts of answers are given — good, bad, and 
indifferent — for reform, substitution and abolition, 
and by the wise and the unwise; and while the 
questions are being asked and the answers given, 
the children grow on and up into men and women. 
If the library is abolished, as many propose, and 
the substitute be the religious Sabbath-school pa- 
pers, the children will grow up without the knowl- 
edge of any books. The great trouble now is Avith 
us all, too much reading of papers — reading Avith 
no intention of remembering beyond the present 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


205 


need of the facts. If, from the books offered — 
which, as Tom Brown says, in the “ ^oeas Syl- 
vius’s Letters,” are “neither fish nor flesh, nor 
good red herring” — we must make a selection, we 
should pray for the wisdom of Solomon. 

Among the so-called religious books, such as we 
put in our Sunday-school libraries, are very few 
that meet the needs of a spiritually hungry child. 
The children who do hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness are asking of us bread, and w’e are offer- 
ing them only a stone. 

We have several times been on committees for 
the selection of books for Sabbath-schools and pub- 
lic libraries, and have well conned what is offered 
for such purposes. There are many books purely 
intellectual, many bright, natural, and interesting, 
but none of them calculated to help a child spir- 
itually — books which we would be glad for our 
children to read or to own, but not to take from 
a Sunday-school library for Sunday reading, hoping 
in them to find help and strength in the religious 
life. 

On the other hand, simply because a book is 
religiovis, is no reason that it ought to be placed in 
a Sabbath-school library. The writer may have 
been too stupid to say any thing that is wicked, 
just as many persons are considered eminently 
pious, because they are not bright enough to be 


206 BOOKS FOR TITE CHILDREN. 

very sinful. We do not want to teach our chil- 
dren stupidity and call it religion. 

We remember several years ago a bright Sab- 
bath-school scholar banding back a book with a 
remark like the following: “The children in that 
book became religious and all died young; mother 
said it was a good book, but I ’m afraid.” 

Of course, we told him that in his case there 
was no danger of his dying of too much goodness,, 
such a thing had n’t happened since tbe days of 
the martyrs, but we had a wonderful sympathy in 
that child’s dislike of that book, for we remembered 
one some pious soul gave us when we w^ere about 
ten years old, giving the “Example of Early 
Piety,” and the pious “ Mary” died wdien she was 
six years old. I really believed, when I read the 
book, if she had been a wicked child she might 
have lived to wmmanhood. 

There is published a class of books which help 
children to become Christians. I once asked a 
girl in her early ’teens if she ever thought about 
becoming a Christian. “ I used to think about it 
when I read the Sabbath -school books. Many a 
time when I ’ve read about a bright girl who was 
living a Christian life, such a life looked so desir- 
able, that I have many a time laid down my book 
and gone to my room to pray that I might become 
good and true, just as God wants- me to become.” 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


207 


But in regard to the writing of such books, it 
seems as though “fools rush in where angels fear 
to tread.” If one makes a failure in writing a 
book for adults, he then experiments with the 
children! If there are people who are peculiarly 
adapted for the training of children, peculiarly gifted 
so as to interest them in conversation, so there 
must be living those who ought to write for them. 

AVhat young person has not been interested and 
spiritually helped by reading Mrs. Charles’s “ Schon- 
berg Cotta Series,” and her other books? “Mad- 
eline Leslie” who wrote “ Tim, the Scissor’s Grinder,” 
helps and interests. Emma Leslie’s books ‘ ‘ Ayesha,” 
“ Quadratus,” Flavia,” “ Leofwine,” etc., are books 
which should be in every Sabbath-school library. 
^Irs. Prentiss’s “ Stepping Heavenward ” — anything 
h\\i2idull book — has helped mauy asoul into the king- 
dom. In the Sabbath-school libraries, where are 
Ingraham’s “Prince of the House of David,” and 
“Throne of David,” we find these among the well- 
worn books. T. S. Arthur’s stories have given 
mauy a child a taste for reading. “Francis For- 
rester ” and D. C. Eddy send out readable books 
for children. All of Dr. Holland’s, with, perhaps, 
few exceptions, can find, with profit, a place in a 
Sunday-school library. Emily H. Miller interests 
the young, and Jennie F. Willing has sent out good 
work. Mrs. Henry’s “ Teaching,” “ Finding,” and 


208 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


“ Using the Truth,” though they savor strongly of 
the encyclopedia and of text books, yet are books 
which must benefit all who read. Then there are 
all of Abbott’s Histories — over thirty volumes in 
all — no library for the young is complete without 
these. Miss Yonge’s Histories should be in the 
libraries and in the homes where the library for 
the young is “yet to be.” 

In the home-library what girl has not found 
pleasure and profit by owning, and knowing the 
works of Miss Alcott, “ Sophie May,” Mrs. AYhit- 
ney, Mrs. Stowe, and other books of the same na- 
ture, written by those who actually knew what 
was most enjoyed, and what was really best for 
the young readers of to-day ? 

It seems strange that so many parents think 
that they can not afford to buy books for their 
children. From a financial point, it is the most 
economical thing they could do. A child who has 
good books, and gets, acquainted through them 
with the noble characters found there, is never 
content with associates of a lower standard. They 
gain different views of life, they have less fond- 
ness for dress and display, they love home more. 
Give your daughters for their friends the girls 
found in “ Real Folks” and “ Little \Yomen,” and 
they will cease to have a fondness for street flirta- 
tions, silly stories, and still sillier companions. 


1 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN, 209 

There is a mother who lives near us who pur- 
chases good books for her children, and one hour 
in an afternoon each week she allows her children 
to invite a few frieuds, and this mother reads to 
them all, and then converses about what she reads. 
The mother is helping her own chilj^lren in thus 
helping her children’s friends. She is helping her- 
self by starting her own children in the right di- 
rection, and she is making her own children what 
they otherwise could not become, lovers of good 
books, and “lovers” of their mother, who denies 
herself for the pleasure and the good of her chil- 
dren. 

The writing for children is one of the noblest 
works in the Christian world, and demands a con- 
secrated talent. It seems a great pity that so 
many have taken upon themselves this work, not 
because they have any thing to say, not because 
they feel woe is me if I perform not this work, 
but because they are ambitious for a cheap rejou- 
tation, hope to make money, or pass away time. 

And the poor children! See them struggling 
through a pile of chaff to find one grain of wheat 
on which to feed. AVith this class of books, the 
trouble is not so much the positive evil which the 
child will find, as depraving the literary taste and 
spending time which could be so much better 
improved. 


210 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


In oiir magazines and papers we fiud columns 
devoted to book notices, which the literary editor 
makes of no use to a thoughtful mind. “These 
books should go into every gentleman’s library.” 
“ This book is an excellent Sabbath-school book.” 
“ This is a charming volume.” “ This is beauti- 
ful and unique.” “ This is full of incident.” “This 
is a prettily bound juvenile, entitled” — and so on 
and on. We purchase the books. One was re- 
commended for the Sabbath-school, because the 
editor saw on the 222d page a religious maxim. 
One is called “unique,” because there is nothing 
like it in earth, in heaven, or in hell, and neither 
2 :)lace would have been better if there had been. 
Another was recommended because the editor 
knew that the author had written one readable 
book, when j^robably he had written in that book 
all he knew and all he ever would know. And 
possibly such an awful thing as nepotism may have 
crejot in to recommend a book. It is shocking to 
think such a thing is possible in the literary world, 
but it may be that the author was brother, sister, 
cousin, aunt, or grandmother of the literary editor. 

There are some books that in the past have 
been recommended for Sabbath-schools which were 
called “ Sensational Moral Stories.” All alike. 
Boys or girls run away from home, encounter mar- 
velous dangers, in some miraculous maimer be- 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


211 


come rich, get “ converted,” go lioine, fall at tlieir 
parents^ feet, have the fatted calf killed, fall in 
love, and forever and forever there is perfumed 
air, with beds of roses. AVe would label the “ Oli- 
ver Optic” books of this class, and wherever they 
arc found in a Sabbath-school, school, or home 
library, instead of giving them to some needy as- 
sociation or person, the best thing that could be 
made of them is to use them for kindling fire in 
the kitchen stove. Not long ago we took up a 
book a bright girl was reading, a book she said 
w’as recommended by the girls in a high-school. 
The heroine was of so humdrum a character, that 
if set in our midst, no bright girl would seek her 
for a friend, and for whom no one, unless it might 
be her own mother, could feel the least interest. 
Through the book runs the thread of a love for 
another character. Toward the close the love 
passages become mighty, and fall faster than 
leaves in Vallombrosa. A red-headed (auburn 
hued) boy of eighteen ma'kes a wonderful declara- 
tion of love. The girl faints (at which we 
are not surprised), her parents oppose (the only 
sensible idea in the book), but the young couple, 
by the help of the ivy that “ clambers over her 
window,” and a moonlight night, rush into the 
world and find happiness and bliss. 

We do not exaggerate in our review of this 


212 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


book, but we know that it never would do for us, 
if we wished to be ^‘successful” as a literary editor, 
to give so full a report ! 

The first requisite in selecting books for a li- 
brary is readable books, so that a taste for reading 
may be cultivated. It seems a most deplorable 
thing for a person to come to manhood or Avoman- 
hood with no fondness for reading, with no desire 
to seek that best society of the world, the society 
Avhich has no taint of vulgarity, which shows no 
petty strife for power or position, Avhich has no el- 
ement of discord, and Avhich alone is found in 
books. 

What a loss for one never to know the blessed- 
ness of losing one’s little, selfish self in some nobler 
life placed before one ; of never forgetting, in 
this glorious company — the best of all ages — the 
fetters that bind and the boundaries that limit one’s 
own life ; of never climbing for one moment into 
the path and walking side by side Avith those Avho 
Avere strong in faith, in purity, in all knowledge 
and Avisdom. Of all the sources from Avhich Ave 
derive culture, AA^e receive oftenest from books our 
highest aims, our loftiest aspirations, and truest 
impulses, and the one thing Avhich AA’e Avould most 
desire to gi\^e a child Avould be a love for good 
books. 

AVe are glad that for the little ones some of the 


BOOKS FOB THE CHILDREN. 


213 


best literature of the laud has been published; the 
charming fairy stories, with the hidden meaning, 
which the mother has to explain; the bright bits 
from child-life, as found in the “Dotty Dimple” 
and “Prudy” story books. Such books cultivate 
the imagination and make a child think of origi- 
nal and bright things. As the children grow older 
the imagination no longer needs cultivation, but a 
good foundation for an intellectual and religious 
life must be laid, and a love cultivated for what is 
real, true, and beautiful. 

Said an intellectual mother, not long ago, in 
sjieakiug of her daughter, just entering her teens, 
for whom she had purchased all the best books of 
the age, which have been published for children, 
“I think now that my daughter ought not to read 
stories alone, and I intend to purchase child’s his- 
tories of our own and foreign lauds; and then Ag- 
nes Strickland’s Queens of England and Scotland 
she ought to have. . She now takes Margaret Ful- 
ler’s books from my library. She must have books 
on science and art, and ancient history. 0, it will 
not be long before she will be interested in the old 
Greek translations. I am a little old fashioned, 
but I ’d like her to enjoy Bohn’s Library just as I 
enjoyed it years ago,” and this enthusiastic mother 
looked quite joyous over the thought of the near 
womanhood of her only daughter. 


214 * 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREN. 


For the children of this age are the terrible 
temptations of the dime novels, the New York 
Ledger, New York Weekly, and trash, and worse 
than trash of this sort, the amount of which would 
astonish some parents if they knew the children 
read it ; but what is worse, some parents spread it 
before their children, after having read it them- 
selves. 

Because there has been and is so much of this 
class of reading devoured, it makes the selection of 
books that will be read all the more difficult. 
Bring a boy up on dime novels, and how much 
pleasure will he take in Hamerton’s “ Intellectual 
Life,” or Clark’s “ Mental Discipline,” one leaf of 
either book being worth more to him than all the 
dime novels ever printed? 

Young men seem to think it a mark of wisdom 
to be skeptical, and one often hears something like 
this: “ All our great men were unbelievers.” How 
should they know otherwise ? Instead of reading the 
lives of Newton, Franklin, Kepler, Cuvier, Lin- 
nreus, Hugh Miller, Agassiz, and the truly great 
Avho were Christians or believers in Christianity, 
they have spent their time in reading the trash we 
have mentioned. 

What a work there is for the parents, for Sab- 
bath and day school teachers. How fearful the 
result, if they fail in any portion of their labor. 


BOOKS FOR THE CHILDREH, 


215 


There are many parents who would be glad to 
select good books for their children, but they do n’t 
know how. Let them ask some one who does 
know. Ask the editor of the Church paper, ask 
some one who knows what childrei;i ought to have. 
The task of selecting a library for a school is 
not so difficult a task. The superintendent and 
teachers of our public schools know pretty well 
what books they want and need — mostly encyclo- 
pedias, dictionaries, and books of references, never 
story books to be taken by the pupils during term 
time. In the Sabbath-schools the task of selecting 
books is more difficult and of most importance. 

In a Church which can afford it, the best way 
is to appoint a committee that shall read every 
book, rejecting all that contain any coarseness, 
nonsense, love stories, or wild adventures. For 
Churches that can not afford this, a committee of 
not less than five should be selected. Among this 
number should be a bright, intelligent mother, or 
teacher, who knows what the children read, and 
what they ought to read ; the librarian, who should, 
like every one who occupies that position, love 
books and know what good books are; the pas- 
tor of the Church ; and the other two on the com- 
mittee the most intelligent members of the Cluirch 
and most religious. If each one of the committee 
bring in a list of one hundred books, on compar- 


216 


BOOKS FOB THE CHILDREN. 


ing, it will be found that the mother has brought 
really good stories and readable histories. The 
librarian has selected works of foreign travel, art, 
and science ; the teacher excellent biographies ; the 
minister will have fifty “ memoirs,” twenty-five, 
or more doctrinal works, several very pious tracts, 
some w^orks on foreign and home missions, and 
“Baxter’s Saints’ Rest.” On comparing, if three 
out of five competent members of the committee 
think the book desirable, nine times in ten it ought 
to go into the library. 

An excellent plan by which good books could 
be selected for the Sabbath-school would be, in 
one of our large cities, to appoint a committee from 
the Churches of really religious and intellectual 
persons, whose revision and censorship of books 
and other publications for Sabbath-schools should 
be reported through prominent Sabbath-school pe- 
riodicals. And when children can have access to 
really good books, it will be but a short time be- 
fore there will be no call for that class of reading 
which brings destruction to soul and body. 


XVIII. 




^T^AST week I called on my friend, Mrs. Simp- 
||f_ son, she had just returned from a trip 
West, where she had been with her husband. 
During the conversation, she mentioned having, 
while away, visited a AVoman’s Foreign' Missionary 
society at Nortonville. 

That was a subject in which I felt interested, 
as we were at that time soliciting for a Missionary 
Tea in our own society. I felt a peculiar interest 
in the work of any other auxiliary society, and 
gladly listened to all my friend had to say on the 
subject. AYith a few questions I drew from her 
the following interesting account of the meeting 
which she attended. 

“There was to be an election of officers that 
day, and the ladies hardly knew how to manage, 
as it was the first election since they were organ- 
ized, so they asked me to be present and help 
217 


218 NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

them. You know what a good business woman I 
am” — and my friend looked up at me with eyes 
full of merriment, for she is a woman who has so 
little self-esteem that she really feels any attempt 
for her to assist others is only a farce — “ and that 
I could n’t refuse my valuable aid. But bless me! 
those ladies put our society all to shame. 

“ The town is small, and the buildings scattered, 
but there were fourteen women present, and nearly 
every one had been obliged to bring a baby, or 
her small children. The little ones were amused 
and cared for by older children in another room, 
so the mothers had not only an afternoon of spir- 
itual enjoyment, but physical rest. 

“ The president is an elderly lady, with one of 
the finest faces I ever saw. A woman born in wealth, 
surrounded wdth beauty, educated at the best of 
Eastern schools, married unfortunately, came West, 
became a Christian, and perfect through suffering. 

“ The meeting was opened with the singing of 
that glorious old hymn of Watts, ‘Jesus shall 
reign where’er the sun,’ sung to that tune of 
‘ INIigdol ’ that my mother used to sing when we 
were little children, and I have loved ever since. 

‘ ‘ After the singing, the president read an ac- 
count in one of the Gospels about the visit, by 
the women, to the sepulcher on the morning of 
the resurrection. She then spoke of their worry. 


NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 219 

as they walked along before reaching the sepul- 
cher, and their fear lest they could not get the 
stone rolled away. She said that wgs just like 
women, to be planning ahead and borrowing trouble 
lest they could not succeed in their undertaking. 
But when they reached the place, they not only 
found the stone rolled away, but received the glo- 
rious tidings of a risen Lord. ‘ Do n’t you know, 
sisters,’ she said, ‘that God is always better to us 
than our fears ?’ Besides the joy, relief, and bless- 
edness, which these women must have felt at the 
glorious tidings which they received, think of the 
great honor bestowed upon them of being the first 
ones commissioned of God to bear to mortals the 
glad news of a risen Savior — the rewai^d of their 
faithfulness to and love for Jesus. They were not 
only to tell the news to those who had been hoping 
and waiting for glad tidings, but also to poor, 
trembling, discouraged, heart-broken Peter. They 
never would have received this blessed privilege if 
they had not been in the way of divine influence. 
They came with spices to perform a work of duty 
and love, and because of this manifestation of 
love and belongedness (if there is such a word), 
they gained the opportunity of doing a more blessed 
work. I think that we must draw very near our 
Savior, must realize that he is ours and we are his, 
if we want him to commission us to tell the same 


220 NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

glad tidings to others. The result of our work, 
without this loving nearness to our Savior, would 
he as ‘ sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.’ What 
little money we have to give we must send forth with 
prayers for God’s blessing to rest upon it. What 
jorayers we offer for the heathen we must offer in 
faith, and try and answer our own prayers just as 
far as we can. This work of ours in the mission 
cause is a personal work, and little by little, two 
cents each week, may be, we can soon make it one 
cent each day. I am raising now a brood of mis- 
sionary chickens. If we could after awhile take 
a heathen child to educate into a Christian woman, 
I am sure we would all be glad to do that. I 
should like my own self to support a native Bible 
reader, who, at my feet, on the other side of the 
world, could daily help into light those who sit in 
heathen darkness. I am sure that we all will do 
what we can to hasten the glad day when all shall 
know Him from the least to the greatest. Let us 
sing that hymn of Charles Wesley’s, 

‘ See how great a flame aspires. 

Kindled by a spark of grace.’ 

And let us pray for faith as we sing the last verse: 

‘ Saw ye not the cloud arise, 

Little as a human hand ? 

Now it spreads along the skies, 

Hangs o’er all the thirsty land. 


NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 221 


Lo ! the promise of a shower 
Drops already from above; 

But the Lord will shortly pour 
All the spirit of his love.’ 

“ And again they all sang — sang with a wonder- 
ful sweetness and pathos — the hymn, to that beauti- 
ful old tune of, ‘ Watchman, .tell us of the night.’ 

“‘Let us pray,’ said the president, and she 
poured forth a prayer to one whom she seemed 
to feel certain would hear, help, and answer — a 
prayer of praise and petition. How that woman, 
in the little out-of-the-way town, with several little 
children to care for, living in the smallest of 
small houses, having a husband in feeble health, 
earning a precarious living — how that womau 
thanked God for her blessings ! 

“ ‘ Not a thing makes my life more blessed than 
that of the heathen, only what the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ has brought me,’ she exclaimed, and 
how she prayed that she might never dole her duties 
out to God; prayed that she might ever have in 
mind his wondrous love to her; that she might 
show her love to him by keeping his command- 
ments, and show her gratitude by works of sacri- 
fice and in labors of love. 

“ Then another offered prayer, and another, 
and another. AYith what faith these women prayed 
for the spread of the Gospel, not only in foreign 


222 NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 


lands, but here at our own doors. With what 
earnestness they pleaded for the heathen, and how 
they cried for help and sustaining grace for the 
missionary in foreign lands, away from home and 
friends. These women are downright in earnest 
in their work. There is no dilettanteism here. They 
are- not doing for the sake of the name or the 
reward. 

‘ ‘ After the devotional exercises came the roll- 
call — every member present I Then the report of 
the last meeting, and a report that brought viv- 
idly to mind all the good things said and done, as 
well as the business transacted. A full report 
from the treasurer, and a book shown that would 
do credit to a bank clerk. A report from the cor- 
responding secretary, and new leaflets to distribute. 
In the miscellaneous business came the exchanging 
of books and papers, and the reading. Not all 
can afford to take the Heathen Woman's Friend, 
but those who can take it loan it at this time to 
those who can not. Not all can take the Advocate, 
but those who do have it, bring here the back num- 
bers and loan to others, the old ones being now re- 
turned and sewed together for future reference. 
With other papers and some books they had, it 
was the same. Many of the papers were marked 
at especially enjoyable or readable articles. Some 
had a bit to read, making running comments as 


NOR TONVILLE MISSION A R Y, SOCIETY. 223 

they read. One lady had brought an interesting 
account of the work of a missionary at Hilo, on 
the Hawaii Island, which she had found in a paper 
sent her by her husband’s mother. It was an ac- 
count of a wonderful work — a marvelous display of 
God’s grace — and it made a great impression on me. 

^‘The missionary who first went there in 1835, 
has just di^l — an old man. In three months he 
learned the language, and the first year went 
around the island — three hundred miles — in a ca- 
noe, finding all the settlements on the island. It 
was a wonderful place to live. Volcanic fires were 
never invisible. At one time a volcano sent up 
for three weeks a pillar of fire one thousand feet 
in the air. The sea came in with tidal waves that 
swept all before it. . A river of fire, of hot lava, 
burrowed its way one thousand five hundred feet 
below the surface to the sea, leaping from the 
cliff* into the hissing waves. 

“ ‘ Could n’t these people understand about Mt. 
Sinai, and the terrors of the Lord?’ 

“ Multitudes flocked to hear the man preach, 
and he found himself often straitened for time 
to eat and sleep. One time he was obliged to 
preach three times before breakfast. The people 
followed him from place to place, and stopped him 
by the wayside to hear about J esus. 

“ Two years after he first went there he had 


224 NOR TONV'ILLE MTSSIONA R Y SOCTE TY. 

fifteen tliousand people, up and down the coast, 
for hundreds of miles, hungry for the bread of 
life. He had one assistant, who had also to care 
for a school ; and there was besides only his own 
wife and the wife of his assistant — four Christian 
teachers for all these people. The people at last 
got so interested in the subject that they left their 
homes and camped near Hilo, until the little vil- 
lage of ten hundred became a place of ten thou- 
sand, and this man had a daily congregation of 
from three thousand to six thousand. The entrance 
of the "Word gave light in every way. The peo- 
ple who were low, brutal, sensual, lazy, had been 
cannibals, were the vilest of the vile, became in- 
dustrious, teachable, kind, and orderly. A Sab- 
bath quiet reigned, and from the booths at dawn 
and nightfall was heard the voice of prayer and 
praise. 

“ They had two churches, the old and the new, 
six thousand in one and three thousand in the 
other. The people sat on the ground as closely as 
they cquld sit. To move from the room one would 
have to walk over them, he could not walk among 
them. 

“The songs are rude and inharmonious, but the 
attempt is honest, and God accepts it as praise. 
Prayer is offered, and then the sermon is given. 
The theme is, ‘ You are sinners, great sinners. 


NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 225 


dead in trespasses and sins ; Christ died to save you. 
Submit your hearts to God ; believe in Christ, and 
you shall live.’ The whole audience tremble and 
weep, and many cry aloud for mercy. 

“ The missionary says he preached as plain and 
simple as he could. Applied the text by illustra- 
tions which all could understand. He tried not 
to excite them ; told them it was not tears but a 
new heart and a new life God wanted. And they 
did lead new lives. The lazy began to work; 
thousands broke their pipes and gave up tobacco ; 
drunkards stopped drinking ; adulteries ceased, and 
murderers confessed their crimes. 

‘ ‘ The missionary described a scene one evening, 
just at time of evening prayer, of the rising of the 
sea. The sea, by an unseen hand, had suddenly 
risen into a gigantic wave, and rushed in with the 
rapidity of a race-horse, and falling upon the 
shore, sweeping every thing before it — men, 
women, children, houses, canoes, food, clothing, 
every thing, floated out upon the wild waves — as 
sudden and as unexpected as lightning from a clear 
sky. In a moment, hundreds of people were strug- 
gling in the waters, and some were carried out to 
sea, to rise no more till the judgment day. 

‘ ‘ He speaks of the conversion of a high-priest 
and priestess of Pele. A man whose pastime was 
murder and robbery. His word was law. Indeed, 
15 


226 NOB TON VILLE MISSION A BY SOCIETT. 

he had only to look and point, and a poor native 
v/as strangled to appease the wrath of their god. 
At last he crept to the meetings, and the truth 
entered his heart. He came confessing his sins, 
and desired to turn from them. ‘ I have lived in 
darkness, and did not know the true God. I wor- 
shiped what was no god. I renounce it all. The 
true God has come. He speaks. I bow to him. 
I want to be his child.’ His sister came also. The 
change in them was wonderful. The sister stayed 
to be taught. They were very old, and soon after 
died in great peace. 

“ This minister, to visit his people in the north- 
ern part of his parish, crossed sixty-three ravines, 
from twenty to a thousand feet deep. In many 
of them the banks are steep, and can be descended 
only by letting one’s self down from crag to crag by 
the hands. In many places he was obliged to wind 
his way along the sides of a giddy steep, where 
one step of four inches from the track would plunge 
him into the fearful depth below. 

‘‘His least weekly number of sermons was six 
or seven, and the greatest twenty -five or thirty. 
Often traveling in drenching rains, crossing rapid 
and dangerous streams, climbing slippery and 
beetling precipices, preaching in the open air, and 
sometimes in wind and rain, with every garment 
saturated with water. 


NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 227 


“But I am making the account too long,” said 
my friend, for I had my eyes closed, and was fol- 
lowing the missionary step by step in his wonderful 
work, and I must have looked a very uninterested 
hearer. 

“No; go on, go on — let me hear the end,” I 
said hastily. 

“ There is but little more in words. This won- 
derful man, Mr. Coan, cared for the children and 
for his people individually, better than many a 
minister with a city parish. 

“ He made them all help him by setting them 
at work caring for and looking after others. Some 
of the native helpers were men full of faith and 
the Holy Ghost. He sent them out, two by two, 
to preach the Gospel in every village and hamlet. 
They climbed mountains, traversed forests, and 
explored glens, searching for the dying people of 
Hawaii. They prayed in every house ; they looked 
after the sick, the wretched, and the friendless ; 
stirred up the minds of the converts, and gathered 
In the children. The Spirit of the Lord fell upon 
them all. 

“Many of the natives were wonderfully gifted in 
prayer. They took God at his word, and with a 
simple and child-like faith, unspoiled by tradition 
or vain philosophy, they went with boldness to the 
throne of grace. 


228 NOR TONVILLE MISSION A R Y SOCIETY. 

“The missionary said he had often felt like 
hiding his face in the dust, Avhen he witnessed 
their earnest wrestlings, and had seen how like 
princes they have had power with God, and have 
prevailed. With tears, with soul-melting fervor, 
and with that earnest importunity which takes no 
denial, they would plead the promises and receive 
what appeared to be the most direct and unequivo- 
cal answers to their prayers. 

“In the years 1838 and 1839 there were seven 
or eight thousand natives who had professed con- 
version, but very few of them had been received 
into the Church. The utmost care was taken in 
selecting, examining, watching, and teaching the 
candidates. The accepted ones stood propounded 
for several weeks, and the Church and the world, 
friends and enemies, were called upon and solemnly 
charged to testify if they knew aught against any 
of the candidates. 

“The communion seasons were held quarterly, 
and at these times these converts, thus carefully 
sifted, were added to the Church. The first Sab- 
bath in January, 1838, 104 were received. After- 
ward, at different times, 502, 450, 786, 357, and 
on one occasion even a much larger number. 

“ The first Sabbath in July, that same year, 
was the day of the greatest accession. On that 
afternoon, 1705 men, women, and children who 


NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 229 

had been heathen were baptized, and took upon 
them tlie vows of God, and about 2,400 communi- 
cants sat down to the Lord’s Supper. 

“After the morning sermon, the crowd had 
been dismissed. The fifty original members of the 
Church were seated down the middle of the church. 
The missionary then called upon the head man of 
each village to bring forward his people. With 
note-book in hand, he carefully selects the converts 
who have been previously accepted. They have 
been for many weeks at the station. No pains were 
spared, no test left unused with each, to make sure 
if he were a child of God. 

“ The multitude of candidates are seated on the 
earth floor, in close rows, with space enough to 
walk between. There is prayer and singing, and 
explanation — made many and many times before — 
of the baptism they are about to receive. Then, 
with a basin of water in his hand, rapidly, rev- 
erently, he passes back and forth along the silent 
rows, and every head receives the sealing ordinance. 
When all — nearly two thousand — have been bap- 
tized, the missionary advances to the front, and, 
raising his hands, pronounces the solemn and hal- 
lowed words : ‘ I baptize you all into the name of 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’ ‘I 
never witnessed such a scene,’ said the missionary. 

‘ There was a hush on the vast crowd without, 


230 NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

who were pressing about the doors and windows. 
The candidates and the Church were all in tears, 
and the overshadowing presence of God was felt 
in every heart.’ 

“The lady who read this to the society was 
one of the best readers I ever heard ; rapid, but 
distinct, and she read as though she saw the very 
scenes she was describing. 

“After the reading there was a few minutes’ 
talk about the subject ; maps brought out, the 
place located, the figures and statements recapitu- 
lated, and all carried with them the facts men- 
tioned in the article. 

“ Then the president said that, as it was the 
day for the election of officers, they would proceed 
to that business. As she understood very little 
about parliamentary rules, she was afraid that the 
business would not be done according to Cushing, 
and wanted that I should take the chair. 

“Why, do you know,” said INIrs. Simpson, 
“that I never felt so insignificant in my life? 
Why, I could sit at the feet of these women and 
be taught by them for years. They lived and 
walked with God, and his glory shone round about 
them. 

“After I declined, the president sat a few min- 
utes ill silence. ‘ We know where to get wisdom, 
sisters,’ she said, and down on their knees they 


NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 231 

all bowed. She pleaded the promise as she would 
have done to a loving mother, and seemed never 
to doubt that just the needed help would be gained. 
She asked that the right officers might be chosen; 
those who would lead them on to greater useful- 
ness ; that the coming year might be the best they 
had ever known ; that God would direct them 
then and there in the needs of that very hour, so 
that all that they might say and do would be for 
his honor and his glory. 

“After the prayer, she said she thought the 
best way to elect the officers would be by ballot, 
then each one could express herself freely, and no 
one take offense. ‘ The secretary may prepare, 
distribute, and collect the ballots, and the ladies 
may first vote for president, not considering me 
a candidate for the office.’ 

“‘Would you serve, if elected?’ asked one. 

“‘Certainly, I’d do the best I could, but there 
are others here who could do better than I. Say 
your little prayer before you vote. We tell our 
husbands to vote as they pray. We will pray as 
we vote — both at the same time.’ 

“When the ballots were collected, they were 
unanimous for her. 

“ ‘ Thank you,’ she said, with tears in her eyes. 

‘ I am so glad that you are not wholly discouraged 
with me, after seeing the failures and mistakes of 


232 NORTONVILLE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 

the last year. The next will be for the vice-presi- 
dents. We have three; and to their duty as vice- 
presidents is added the work of a literary com- 
mittee, and also the ones to plan for socials, 
prayer-meetings, and missionary teas. We will 
elect them one by one.’ 

‘‘ The vice-presidents were speedily elected. 

“‘The recording secretary, on whom devolves 
the giving notice of the meetings, keeping the 
records — making each report as interesting as pos- 
sible, the notifying members when extra duties are 
required of them, and in numberless ways holding 
up the hands of the president — you may now elect.’ 

“ This was also quickly done, the votes being 
tossed into the president’s lap for her to count. 

“ ‘ The treasurer, who carries the burden of the 
financial part of our society, collects the dues, keeps 
a correct book -account of all moneys taken and 
expended, reporting at each meeting, reporting 
quarterly to the branch treasurer. For our treas- 
urer, whoever she may be,’ said the president, ‘ I 
hope you will pray earnestly. The success of our 
society financially depends on her.’ 

“The treasurer was re-elected, as vras the cor- 
responding secretary, one of the most important 
ofiicers of the society. 

“ ‘ Let us close with prayer, and the singing 
of ‘ Praise God from whom all blessings fiow.’ 


N OB TON VILLE MISSION A BY SO CIETY. 233 

“After the close of the meeting, the ladies spent 
a little time socially, then all went out to tea. 
Each lady, when she came, brought a little lunch 
of bread and butter, a piece of cake, or cheese, or 
cold meat, or can of fruit. Each brought her own 
plate, napkin, fork, and spoon. The tea, the cups, 
the cream, and the sugar, alone were provided by 
the hostess. 

“ The husbands could not come, but the ladies 
and children went home rested and refreshed. 

“But,” said my friend, “the tea, necessary as 
it seemed to be, was not the least enjoy^able or the 
thing least to be commended at this very pleasant 
and profitable missionary meeting at Norton ville.” 


XIX. 





^HEN I was visiting my friend Alcestis, a 
few months ago, one morning Mrs. Brown, 
her next neighbor, came in to inquire how 
to make “ mixed pickles.” 

As she went out, she glanced around the sunny 
room, and exclaimed, “More sweet than sour 
pickles in your life, I think.” 

‘ ‘ Did you ever think what sort of a ‘ chow- 
chow’ a woman’s life is?” I asked, after Mrs. 
Brown had left. “ It seems to me, sometimes, 
as though at the creation of woman there was 
some mistake. She, only a rib, and yet have to 
fill so many positions, when all the ribs which were 
left need do only one thing in life— and take his 
choice at that. Personally, I do n’t complain, be- 
cause I am a woman ; I do n’t feel as though I 
was called upon in any way to alter woman’s posi- 
tion. I accept things as they are, firmly believing 
'woman should fill the place for which she was 
created. But, after all, I do feel sorry for some 
234 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


235 


women who do n’t seem to find the niche where 
they belong. And I suppose, for that matter, that 
there are men who have made mistakes, but they 
are strong enough to take care of themselves, and 
do n’t go whining round for sympathy from women, 
thank fortune, so we remain in ignorance of their 
mistakes. Every woman who has a home, whether 
she has any taste for it or not, must be a good 
housekeeper if she expects peace in tliis world. 
To train her children properly, and to be a real 
helpmeet to her Adam, she must be intellectual. 
And, as her soul is of more importance than the 
things of this world, she must be a religious 
woman. Why ! her life is more mixed than 
Joseph’s coat. I wonder if the mistake made — if 
there was a mistake — was not in the not taking 
another rib and making one rib into the body and 
the other into the soul and brain ! What do you 
put into tins mixture called ‘ life,’ Alcestis, to make 
it palatable ? ” 

“ Hamerton says that ‘the essence of intellec- 
tual living is not in the extent of science, or in 
the perfection of expression, but is more the con- 
dition of mind that seeks the highest, than the 
accomplishment.’ If that is true of the intellectual 
life, it is also true of the spiritual life in its de- 
gree,” said Alcestis, after a moment’s silence. 
“ This is what makes life so comfortable a thing 


236 


THE KINGD OM WITHIN. 


to me. I am glad that God has reverded to 
us the manner of making the bitter fountain 
sweet. 

“ Yes, life is a strange thing,” she continued, 
musingly, “ especially our lives — the life of woman. 
So much of our work the greatest and grandest, 
and so much the smallest and meanest. We can, 
and often do, go from the seventh heaven, where 
we are enjoying an intellectual or a. spiritual feast, 
to the lowest depth of care, anxiety, or actual 
servitude. Sour bread, over-done roast, a sponge 
cake that has a particular fondness for the bottom 
of the cake-dish ; the making the clothes last ; the 
wondering how to turn this garment upside down 
and wrong side out, and have it look as good as 
new ; the contriving ways and means to procure a 
new carpet for the one already worn out; new 
table linen; new blankets for the beds and new 
boots for the children ; the striving to keep a 
saintly character when the back aches from a hard 
day’s work over the ironing-table, wash-tub, or 
molding-board. Yes, care, anxiety, and servants^ 
labor. We also train immortal souls — more valu- 
able than an archangel’s — supposing they have 
souls. Alas ! that we do our greatest work often 
more heedlessly than our most insignificant. Yes, 
we wear ourselves oiit for the things which avail 
but little, when we ought to save our strength for 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


237 


nobler work,” and she glanced at a dress I was 
elaborately trimming for my baby. 

“Go on,” I said, with a smile, “I like your 
sermons, for you do manage to sugar-coat the pill, 
and that is more than I can say of all I have 
heard in this life of mine.” 

“Well, to illustrate!” and Alcestis painted a 
solemn-looking owl, that Minerva herself would 
not disdain to own, with a few strokes of her brush 
on the impainted canvas on the easel before her. 
“ This morning I was earnestly talking to Admetus 
about a remark made by our pastor at an evening 
meeting, concerning ‘ the kingdom of heaven within 
you,’ when he interrupted me with, ‘I do wish 
you ’d hurry Jane. She has n’t the coffee over 
yet.’ You would have called that ‘ mixed,’ but I 
could speak to Jane and not lose the influence of 
what had been said before he suggested hurrying 
her tardy steps. After breakfast, when he gave 
the usual good-bye kiss, with the same breath he 
asked if he should bring a sirloin steak for dinner. 
This manner of living used to seem absurd to me; 
to mix our theology and coffee, our human love 
and the meat that perisheth. 

“ When I was first married I kept up the habits 
I had in my father’s home, in regard to hours of 
private devotion, self-examination, and religious 
public services. I took my hour each day for the 


238 


THE KIN GD 031 WITHIN 


study of my Bible, meditation, and^prayer ; then 
I labeled my religion, laid it by to be brought out 
as a sort of feast the next day at the same hour. 
My peace, my joy, and my comfort were the 
things I cared about more than I did my Savior. 
These things were too sacred to talk about, too 
sacred for constant use. Religion, God, heaven, 
and eternity should not be spoken of except on 
the Sabbath, and then mostly in church, and by 
the minister when in the pulpit.” 

Here my friend ceased speaking for a little 
while, and I worked busily, sewing lace on ruffles, 
and ruffles on the dress. At last Alcestis sud- 
denly said, again turning to me, and sticking her 
brush in her hair, “ If you had obtained a most 
precious jewel, one that gave you constant satis- 
faction as you wore it, and you knew where your 
friends could each have such a priceless treasure, 
would you think much about it? Would you ever 
speak of it ? If your elder brother was away pre- 
paring a glorious mansion for you, to be just as 
beautiful as you yourself would be capable of 
adorning and being mistress of, how. would you 
conduct yourself in regard to it? Would there be 
a minute in the day when you would not be, either 
purposely or insensibly, preparing yourself to adorn 
and inhabit the place being prepared? If you 
knew your friends could have just such a home. 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


239 


would you ever speak of the fact to them? Would 
you talk over these things with your husband and 
your children ? ” 

“You do put things in such a matter-of-fact 
light,” I said. “ But what if you were in Mrs. 
Brown’s shoes, instead of your own? I do n’t 
wonder she thought of sweet and sour pickles wdien 
she compared your life with her life. Suppose you 
had four children to clothe and for whom to care, 
and hardly knew from where the next cent was 
coming ; health not very good ; your own work to 
do, clear down to the washing, ironing, scrubbing 
floors, and washing windows. I wonder if you 
could take things as coolly, and mix religion with 
your bread and molasses for breakfast, your beef- 
bone soup for dinner, and with your molasses and 
bread for supper! As for myself, comfortable as 
I have things, I can ’t get time to think much 
about these subjects, except on Sunday and Thanks- 
giving; ” and I felt a little cross and a trifle envious 
that this friend should seem to sail to glory on 
flowery beds of ease, while I was plodding along 
on foot, with not even the certainty of getting 
there at last. “Not that I ought to complain,” I 
added, as I thought of my own blessings, “ but I 
do have so much to do. A large house to care 
for, never free from company or callers. Of course, 
I like it, but then the time goes, all the same — the 


240 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


prayer-meetings, class-meetiags, and Church services 
to attend ; the children to see to (and they alone 
never would give me a minute to myself), and, 
half the time, incompetent help.” 

“I hope you do not think that your children 
are too great a burden, and must be hindrances in 
your divine life,” and Alcestis’s voice faltered, and 
I could have bitten oft my tongue because I had 
not thought sooner of the little graves near her 
old home, thousands of miles away. 

After a little she said, in a voice as sad as a 
far-oft* strain of dirge-like music, “ Christ gives us 
each our cross, and if there had been any way to 
lead us into the mansion prepared, except by suf- 
fering, surely Christ would not have led us all by 
the same road he himself trod before us. And 
shall we seek to be above our Lord? There is 
always a cross for us to carry — sometimes unseen 
by the world, but one which our great Burden- 
bearer knows all about, and which he so gladly 
helps us carry. He loves us too well to cause us 
needless trials, and if we will bear our cross 
cheerfully, it will soon bear us. And about 
‘mixing our religion with our breakfast and din- 
ner,’ let me tell you, ‘ Martha,’ that is the way to 
live.” 

Alcestis touched a bit of foliage with burnt 
umber, and, shading another bit with a dab of 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


241 


Indian red, turned from her easel again, and, using 
her brush to mark her emphasis, looking me in 
the face, said, “You know, ‘ Martha,’ that you 
do n’t get any sweetness out of your religion. You 
have only enough to make you uncomfortable. 
Why not give up trying to live this way, and come 
so near your Savior that you will constantly live in 
the light of his ' countenance, and have an inner 
sympathy with God’s will, which will give a con- 
stant peace which the cares of this world can never 
disturb? You open your eyes at the idea of the 
kingdom of God within you! You can’t, of 
course, enjoy it, if you do not realize it is there. 
Now, if you only could realize that this could be, 
that Christ is a personal Savior — make heaven so 
real a place that it would be only an open door 
between you and eternity — you ’d begin to enjoy 
religion. You actually do not ‘enjoy’ it now; ’tis 
too good, like an elegant dress or hat which one 
can hardly afford, and can not take real comfort 
in. I wish, my dear, that you would pray over 
this. Prayer is the key which unlocks God’s 
storehouse. 

“ Our Father has shown you,” she went on, 
what there is laid up for you — beyond any thing of 
which you can conceive. Eye hath not seen, ear hath 
not heard of the glory that awaits you even in this 
life, and you know how to get the treasures. Last 
IG 


242 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


Wednesday evening we 'were singing in prayer- 
meeting — do you remember? — 

‘ Prone to wander, Lord I feel it ; 

Prone to leave the God I love,’ 

and I thought to myself then, what a shameful 
confession that was for ns, as lovers of God, to 
make. If we do actually love him who sought 
and rescued us by his own precious blood, why do 
we wander, or leave him ? ” 

‘‘ ’T is rather a dirge-like song for the ears of 
the Bridegroom, I confess, and the thought that 
we are apt to do this often puzzles me,” I replied. 
“A child does not wander from parents, a lover 
does not leave his beloved — his heart clings to her 
without wavering or doubt. And I, too, was won- 
dering, when we sang, if God was pleased with us 
when we had this feeling of wandering from liim. 
I do really wish, Alcestis, that I was rooted and 
grounded in him. I confess I get but little time 
to think about these things — or, I suppose you 
would have me state it more correctly — I take but 
little time — but when I do think of my religious 
experience, I have a feeling of profound disgust 
for myself. I distinctly remember when I first 
heard about intermittent springs — it was in a little 
philosophy I studied when I was seven years old — 
those springs connected by siphons with reservoirs 
in the. mountains, and I remember the surprise I 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 243 

felt that such things were. But, somehow, I do n’t 
feel half as much astonishment when I think about 
that ‘spriug’ which can always spring forth in 
every believer’s heart, and then see how we, in- 
stead of having that perpetual supply, draw from 
the reservoir of God’s grace in a sort of siphonal 
manner — not exactly the same, either, for we bend 
the tube to suit our own feelings — and have our 
peace intermittent, and our hope and our comfort 
in the same uncertain sort of a way. Sometimes, 
when nothing troubles me, I rest in God ; but, 
when the cares and trials and perplexities come in 
like a flood, I look for the light-house of faith, 
that I could plainly see in the fair weather, and to 
my dismay the lamp burns so dimly that, before I 
know it I am on the rocks, and the waters over- 
whelm me. I am ashamed to confess this.” 

“But you need not be,” replied Alcestis. “I 
know so many women who are professing Christians, 
who know that Jesus is their friend, their helper, 
their burden-bearer, if they would only let him 
care for them in the way he is glad to help, but 
they continue to carry their own burdens, bow their 
hearts down beneath their loads, and instead of 
saying, ‘ Dear Jesus, take my care, take my sor- 
row, take my sin, and give me rest,’ they cry out, 
‘ O Lord, how long ? ’ 

“ I remember so well how I used to stagger 


244 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


along, weary and heavy laden, but still persisting 
in carrying my own load. I used to try to place 
my cares on him, have gone to him with my sor- 
row, have asked relief from my burdens, and yet 
risen from my knees with the same worried and 
unhappy heart that I had when I bowed before 
him. Often, when perplexed and troubled wdth 
cares, have I asked the Lord to show me the way, 
to lead me, to carry my load, and at the close of 
my petition felt just as burdened and bewildered 
as ever. If your child was wandering from the 
direction she wanted to go, would slie not ask 
your help? Would you not feel like saying, ‘ My 
dear little one, I know that you are troubled and 
tired ; let me take your bundle, heavy for you but 
light for me, and I shall be glad to show you the 
way. Even more, my dear child, let me carry 
you and your burden.’ 

“ We can not imagine a weary little child who 
would not be glad to rest in her mother’s arms, 
content the mother should care for her and all her 
little burdens. Neither can we imagine one who 
is heartily sick and tired of wandering, and of its 
burden, who, when the mother offered help, would 
turn from her and go her own way. AVhen we, 
as Christians, do this with the Lord ; when we turn 
from his proffered help, then no wonder we sing, 

‘ Prone to wander.’ 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


245 


“ Years ago, when I first became a Christian, 
there came to me a great trouble. I tried to cast 
my burden upon the Lord. I honestly tried the 
best I knew how, but my burden remained, and I 
became so perplexed that I nearly lost faith in 
God. I thought that because he did not immedi- 
ately answer, and answer in the way I wanted my 
petition answered, that he would not hear my cry, 
and in my own strength I carried the burden, and 
it failed to work out for me the great good which 
I doubt not my Father intended for me. To-day, 
as I look back, I am pained because I see what I 
have lost by not earlier knowing the only sure 
refuge in time of trouble.” 

“ Kutherford says, ‘ Sanctification and the mor- 
tification of our lusts are the hardest part of Chris- 
tianity,’” I said, as my friend began to wipe her 
brushes, and I feared lest she would say no more 
on the subject, in which she had created a deep 
interest in my heart. “ How many of us would 
have Christ divided into two halves, that we might 
take the half of him only, and take his office — 
Jesus and salvation ? But ‘ Lord ’ is a cumber- 
some word, and to obey and work out our salva- 
tion and perfect holiness is the cumbersome and 
stormy north side of Christ, and that which we 
eschew and shift.” 

“ Yes,” said Alcestis, “ we do forget that all 


246 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


growth is the more valuable according to the diffi- 
culties surmounted. There is a tribe of savages 
who believe that the power of the conquered enemy- 
passes into the conqueror. Is n’t that theory actu- 
ally true with us in regard to the physical, moral, 
and spiritual life ? The physical nature that has 
not found ease and luxury grows strong in the 
battle for life. The moral nature that is firm and 
imw^avering when passing through temptations, 
can, in subsequent life, pass through similar scenes 
and find no temptation at all. The intellectual- 
part of our being, if rightly trained, will gain 
more by overcoming than by receiving, and the 
difficulties always act as a tonic. But in our 
spiritual nature we shrink from the knowledge that 
we must endure in order to take steps upward.” 

After a minute of silence Alcestis continued, 
“It is hard for us to keep sight of God in a storm, 
and I know only too well how the waters come in 
over us. But we must listen for the voice beyond 
the storm. If we can catch the faintest sound of 
that voice, if only the odor of the music of the 
far-off tones reach us, should we not be still more 
anxious to keep from the sea of our own desires 
safe in God’s blessed will? The trouble wfith most 
of us is, that we will not realize what we lack ; 
we will not grow restless because we are cold and 
indififerent. We encourage ourselves by thinking 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


247 


that we are living about right ; that we are a little 
more saintly than the Church members in the 
pews around us ; that our lives are better than they 
were a few years ago. By comparing ourselves 
with ourselves we grow satisfied, fold our hands,' 
and say, ‘ a little more slumber.’ 

“There is no realization of our needs; there is 
no hungering after righteousness,” continued my 
friend, with earnestness; “and, worse than all, 
■we do not want the hunger, -we do not want a 
spiritual impatience. We know that we are not 
living as we ought. Like a good old sister I once 
knew, we in our hearts feel what she said, week 
after week, ‘ I am not enjoying that religion which 
it is my duty and my privilege to enjoy, but my 
face is set as a flint Zionward,’ and we propose to 
remain in that position. 

“ Imagine a man starting from here to go to a 
town twenty miles south of us, with his horses and 
carriage, on a very mud(^y day in early Spring. 
When part way there his horses plunge into mud 
beyond their depth, flounder there for a time, pull 
the man along a few feet, and then stick fast. 
A friend goes by after a while, and cries out, 
‘Why! how is this? Why do you sit there so 
quietly? Waiting for the mud to dry up? Why 
do you not make some effort to save yourself?’ 
What should you think of the man if he replied, 


248 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


‘ O, I do n’t feel particularly anxious about my 
condition. I know that I am not progressing as I 
ought, but still I feel that I am established. My 
face is set as a flint toward the town to which I 
am going?’” 

“If we want Christ to lielp us we must help 
ourselves,” I replied to her questioning look. ‘ ‘ I 
know that I am not more logical, at times, than the 
man in the mud. But, some way — though I know 
it is the thing to do — I have not learned, when I 
carry my burdens to Christ, to leave them there. 
I suppose I ought to take them back if I find I 
have taken them away with me when I leave the 
mercy-seat. And I know, also, that when I will 
allow Christ to undertake for me, that he can do 
that without any anxiety on my part ; that there 
is no need for me to have a heart full of anxiety 
and care. I know one thing, and that is, if I 
could only think to carry the little things — the little 
trials of life — to God, and feel as though he cared 
for me just as he cares for the sparrow, it would 
give me great comfort, and tend to keep me nearer 
to him.” 

“Do you remember the lady who was in here 
last week, who you thought had such a beautiful 
face?” asked my friend. “She used to sew for 
me before she was married. She is a quiet, intelli- 
gent woman, and a member of the Episcopal 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


249 


Church. We were talking of these things one 
day when she was helping me, and I inquired why 
she became a seamstress. Her reply was : ‘ My 
health was failing, our home was to be broken up, 
and I was very anxious about the future. I car- 
ried my anxiety to the Lord; I have no other 
refuge. I told him that I was burdened, and that 
I did not know what to do. I had thought that 
perhaps I could earn a livelihood with my needle, 
* but I had not the courage to say so to any one. 
But I left my care with our Father. In a few 
weeks a lady who was going East, and had a great 
deal to do, a member of my own Church, and one 
of the best of women, came and asked me, in a 
diffident sort of way, if I would come and help 
her with her sewing. I considered it a direct an- 
swer to my prayer. I went, and since that time, 
though I have not asked for work, I have had all 
that I could do, and I have no fears for the future. 
I seldom speak of this, yet I do not fear to do so 
to you, knowing that you Avill understand that I 
wish to give God all the glory.’ 

“ O, Martha! I am glad that you do want 
more of God’s love in your heart,” continued Al- 
cestis, after telling the experience of her friend, 
and finding I made no reply. “I am glad that 
you are tired of groping in the dark ; that you 
want to fall with your burden upon ‘ the great 


250 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


world’s altar stairs, that slope through darkness up 
to God ; ’ and instead of stretching ‘ lame hands of 
faith, to grope and gather dusc and chaff,’ you 
want to reach forth and grasp the precious truth, 
and firmly trust yourself in the care of him who 
says, ‘ Let not your heart be troubled ’ — ‘ troubled’ 
about the food or the raiment, the home, society, 
the Church, or the lesser cares and perplexities of 
life. We each know our own burdens, but to each 
our Savior says, ‘ Let not your heart be troubled, 
I will undertake for you.’ 

“Just think of it, Martha, freedom from care I 
What a blessed thought for a tired mother and 
home-keeper. If you only can learn to take all 
your cares, spiritual and temporal, to God, there 
will come a peace which passeth all understanding, 
and when we resign all to him the joy comes.” 

“ O, Alcestis, do you suppose I could so live as 
to get rid of this contempt for myself which I feel 
when I think how weak I am?” I exclaimed, im- 
petuously. 

When I went to my home, the next day, I 
took Alcestis’s words with me. When I lay aside 
the book of which I am so fond, and take Avork 
from the stocking-basket, or pick up the dish-cloth, 
I try to realize that this is the work given me, 
and by mixing dish-water and hymns, mending 
and prayers, I get now and -then a taste of the 


THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 


251 


feast which I enjoyed at my hours of devotion in 
the years gone by. I often get discouraged, and 
wish that heaven would fall into my lap, instead 
of my reaching for only a piece at a time, but I 
am pressing on, and trying to do now what I must 
do even at heaven’s gate, borrow strength from 
Christ. And I am glad at the thought that, 
though I can not in this life "separate Christ and 
his cross, yet they will part company at the door 
of the mansion over beyond ; and in that mansion 
which he has prepared will never enter sorrow, 
sighing, or pain ; and, instead of ‘ the kingdom 
within ’ — O, joyful thought ! — it will be within the 
kingdom. 


XX. 




t HE old year has passed and the new has 
fairly begun. We look hack and we look 
♦ forward. We look back on imperfection, 
and we look forward to perfection. That is, it 
will be perfection, if we can judge by good resolu- 
tions. If it was not so very sad, it would strike 
one as absurd to see this difference between antici- 
patory saintliness and retrospective badness. And 
to think that we go on, year after year, making 
resolutions by wholesale on the birthdays and the 
year’s birthday, and that the results are so meager. 

AVe look back to the days when we were young 
enough to write in our diary of January 1st the 
resolutions we intended to carry out through the 
year. “ Kise in the morning at the first breakfast 
bell;” “Not to read any more novels;” “Speak 
pleasantly to people I don’t like;” “Not to whis- 
per any more to Charlie Bowers, who sits across 
the aisle,” and several more, making the string as 
long as Dr. Edwards’s “Rules for holy living.” 
252 


2'HE NEXT DUTY. 


253 


How much better than that are we doing now? 
Of course, we all well remember how many days 
we kept our good resolutions. Now, we resolve, 
“We will live a better life this year than we did 
last.” But how ? It is not one grace but a cluster 
of graces, perfect and mature, that makes the 
Christian character. It is not doing a few things 
better, but doing all our duties the best we can — 
not only doing them the best we can, but doing 
them cheerfully. 

At a political meeting an Englishman was asked 
why he was late. “I stopped to see a volunteer 
dragged to duty,” ’was his reply. 

The Master has a battle for us to fight, and we 
are volunteers in his great army, but how often 
does the world get a chance to stand by and see 
us “ dragged to duty ? ” 

But some woman will say, “In this Iliad, 
where the world is a battle-plain, our part is to 
stand on the walls and watch, only fighting the 
battle in our own hearts.” 

Is that all there is for us to do? 

A saint asked, “ Wliat if Christ have another 
written representation of me than I have of my- 
self? Where am I then ? ” 

Our acts often look to us to be about right ; do 
we ever stop to analyze the motive? Do we ever 
think how often this is all wrong? Often duty is 


254 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


performed from tlie effect of some unseen or iin- 
thougiit of force, wliich pushes us forward to action. 
There is recorded of us, not only the wrong motive, 
but the work left undone, as well as the wrong 
acts. We forget that simply ceasing to do wrong 
is not enough. 

Last Sabbath we went to Church — to Avorship 
God? or because we had a new hat, a new im- 
ported cloak, or because the Spangenbergs are visit- 
ing the Lincolns? Sometimes Ave go because Ave 
have a class in Sabbath-school which meets just 
before or after service, and we “ might as Avell go 
to both while Ave are dressed.” Sometimes the 
choir needs us. Sometimes “because it’s habit.” 
Sometimes because AA^e are hungry for the Word, 
and hope there to find the hidden manna. That 
is, sometimes because we Avant to learn how to fight 
the battles of the Lord, and sometimes by the un- 
seen force. 

From a Church membership of tAvo hundred, 
Ave find ten, fifteen, possibly tAventy, at the weekly 
prayer-meeting. The world looks at the one hun- 
dred and eighty, and in a tone of sarcasm says, 
“ Volunteers!” 

Are those Avho go true volunteers? Are they 
not sometimes dragged thither by habit, by an op- 
portunity to sing, to speak; to mourn over the 
unfaithfulness of the Church — that is, to mourn 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


255 


over those who are not as holy as themselves ; be- 
cause it is expected of them ; because they want 
somewhere to go ; or, because the husband, wife, 
father, or child, asks them for company? 

Do we all and always go because we need 
spiritual help ? Because we are hungry, and need 
a morsel between the feasts? Because our armor 
needs repair? Do w^e realize that our sword is 
rusty? That the shield has moved up to the 
shoulder-blade, and does not avail when the enemy 
comes ? 

If we live up to our good resolutions, is that 
sufficient, no matter what the motive? 

Sometimes we think we can take a choice of 
duties, when we have only buried our talent deep 
in jthe pit, and sit beside it watching, because we 
dread to face the criticism of the unjust world. 

We did not go to see Margaret Jones when she 
was sick of sin. We were afraid that our white 
garments would be soiled by a touch of her hands, 
and we were needed elsewhere just then, which 
“almost seemed providential.” “You know” if 
we had gone, that our influence for good might 
have "been lessened. 

“ O, yes, we want to help souls to Christ, but — 
but — well, really, we have no tact to go out ‘ into 
the highways and hedges,’ and might do more 
harm than good. Then, you know, our motives 


256 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


might be misconstrued. Really, that is not my 
duty.” 

How strange that we can ever forget that 
Christ’s ^^Well done I” is worth more than all earth 
besides. 

Ah ! how easy to deceive ourselves ; to fold our 
hands and bid heaven come to us. 

There are many who are sick. We can call on 
bright Mrs. Garnet, or dear Mrs. Pearl, but what 
can drag us to call on Mrs. Gosling, who sniffles, 
wipes her nose on her apron, and pours forth her 
grievances so fast that we have no opportunity to 
say any of those beautiful things which we had 
thought over for her especial benefit? 

Why are we always expecting and hoping 
that the way over life’s battle-field will be pleas- 
ant ? Instead of looking for the pleasant things to 
do, wffly not look more earnestly for the right ones? 

And why are we so apt to forget that the w^ay 
is growing constantly shorter? “Over beyond,” 
to-day, is not as far as it was yesterday. Soon, 
how soon ! it will be only a step ; only a reaching 
out to obtain the crown that awaits the faithful. 
Need we falter? Can we not patiently and joy- 
fully press on in the path His feet have trod ? If 
we do this, the way grows pleasanter as we near 
the other side. And, as we go, let us take wdth 
us, if we can, all of God’s little ones — the poor, the 


THE NEXT D UTY. 


257 


simple, the erring, the outcasts. These were his 
special care. Are we above our Captain ? Shall 
w^e stand on the wall and see the victorious army of 
Satan and his hosts crowding forward ; see the sol- 
diers in the army in which we have enlisted fall ; 
see the banner sometimes waver; and, for fear it 
is “ woman’s only place to watch,” never go to help 
our great Leader? We hear the cry of the sore 
pressed — how quickly a sympathizing woman hears 
this cry; we know the tempted — with woman’s 
sure instincts; we see the wounded; and who 
knows how better to care for them than we ? — and 
we hear the groans of the dying. 

When our Captain passed over this field, he 
listened to the faintest sound of distress ; he en- 
couraged the faltering; he gave cooling draughts 
to the thirsty; he brought relief to the weary, the 
sad, the oppressed. Can we not love the way he 
himself trod? Can we not do the work given us 
to do, when he chose for us our battle-field, and 
has provided for us the armor and the weapons? 

T/Ook up, sister! Recognize his banner, on 
which is emblazoned Love, in shining letters, and 
let us no more be dragged to duty, but press for- 
ward, cheerfully taking for his sake the duty that 
is next before us. 

If we would j we can not reach heaven by simply 
saying, “Lord! Lord!” It is not al the next 
17 


258 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


door ; the battle-field lies between us and the eter- 
nal home, and wishing, longing, resolving, really 
does not help us along on the journey. Regrets 
for the past and good resolutions for the future do 
not, in reality, help us in the least. Or, the wish- 
ing that we could put brakes on the wheels of 
time, and stop long enough to rest, to gather cour- 
age for new work, or to undo what we have already- 
done, avails nothing. 

Alas ! that we all must have this keen sense 
of regret over the work done, or the wwk left un- 
done. 

One year ago we all made plans for mental im- 
provement, for greater culture, for deej^er search- 
ing into the hidden mysteries, for gaining greater 
knowledge of the height, the depth, the length, 
and the breadth of the wondrous gift ; we resolved 
to live more consecrated to the work given us as 
Christians, to make life more unselfish. But we 
have failed, in a great measure, because we let 
little duties slip from our grasp uncared for and 
unnoticed. Our motives may have been of the 
best, and we would cheerfully have done any work 
Avhich looked to us to be duty, but we really did 
not see the work. 

We ask ourselves, as we look over a year that 
is past, “Are we better to-day than we were one 
year ago ? ' And we are mute. AVho is better be- 


THE NEXT D UTY. 


259 


cause we lived the past year? We answer with a 
sigh. What books have we read that contributed 
to our mental and spiritual growth? Did the year 
in the past help us well along over the battle-field, 
or did we only go on thinking mostly of our own 
burdens, wounds, and heart-aches? Is the Church 
any better because we belonged to it during a year 
just gone into eternity ? Did Ave cheerfully give 
for its support? Did our presence cheer in the 
prayer-meeting?' Have we used our talent in the 
Sabbath-school ? Have we oeen interested in the 
great work women are doing for the evangelization 
of women in heathen lauds, and have we done all 
we could have done in this direction? Have we 
freely given to Jesus of our learning, our time, 
our position, our intellectual store, our wealth, our 
talent ? 

Yes, we know “ the battle-field is not pleasant.” 
We all know that when Christ called us, he called 
us to a life of toil, not to one of rest, and it must 
be, “ Give, or it will not be given unto you ; ” 
“Give, and it shall be given unto you.” It is. 
Bring and receive. God’s storehouse is full, but 
we have no claims if we come empty handed. If 
we come, bringing the sacrifice, we shall go away 
with the soul full and running over. 

God wants us to do this. He expects us to be 
fruitful in knowledge, faith, and obedience. The 


260 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


'wisdom and faith are God’s gifts, the obedience is 
our work. It is we and the Lord. He does the 
larger share, but he has left a share for us to do. 

So often, when we hear Christians singing in 
plaintive tones, 

“ Where is the blessedness I knew 
When first I saw the Lord?” 

we think of what they themselves were doing for 
their Master. Their hearts, at the first, had just 
been filled with the wisdom and the faith for which 
they bad earnestly sought, and that made obedience 
easy. The “blessedness” always comes where 
there is obedience. When the tithes are gladly 
brought in, when duty is found and cheerfully 
done, the blessing is always poured out. Why 
they mourn is, because yesterday’s supply was not 
great enough to last over till today. When they 
began to “drag” themselves to duty, the “bless- 
edness” came not. 

We can not live in a state of “ blessedness ” 
unless we do the duties as they come along. The 
heart is full, and we sing, actually feeling the 
words of the hymn as if it had been first ex- 
pressed by us. 

“ Were the whole realm of nature mine, 

That were a present far too small ; 

Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all.” 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


261 


But if just then the missionary box comes — 
the fall in stocks — bad debts, limited salary, the 
failure of the corn crop, prospect of grasshoppers, 
the depression of the market, the cost of the fam- 
ily, all the forbodiug evils which the head of the 
family always shares with “poor, weak woman,” 
come trooping through the mind like a legion of 
devils, and we drop into the box only a small 
share of all that which the Lord has put into our 
hands to use for his glory, and away goes the 
“blessedness” of the minute before. AVe forget 
the date and dabitur, that wLen one was in good 
condition, the other also flourished. 

There are many Christians who are all the time 
searching for happiness and peace, who never once 
think to look in the right direction. If they ’d 
only search for duty, if they would work, and 
cheerftdly work in the vineyard, the peace would 
come. 

Many lose all anxiety about the race set before 
them after their faces are once turned heavenward. 
After the first doubts are removed, they sit down 
with folded hands. If we have received the germ 
of a perfect life, is n’t the full development re- 
quired ? If the germ is not cultivated, will it not 
die of neglect, or at best, cease to grow as it ought ? 
Soon after growth ceases, decay begins. 

It is easy to see a iileasant duty, but it is with 


2G2 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


blurred vision that we see what calls for sacrifice 
of ease, comfort, pleasure, pride, or self. We 
often do half the duty, the easier part. We do 
the duties that all the world expects us to do. We 
attend church service, we call upon certain poor, 
we attend the “Dorcas,” the socials, the festivals, 
and mite societies. But to give up the easy- 
chair at home, really to prefer another’s comfort 
and pleasure to our own, to forgive an enemy 
with all the heart — about these duties we see men 
as trees walking. The grandest Christian unhes- 
itatingly and with perfect honesty does the duty, 
the whole duty that is next before him. 

I know a ’woman, fretful, dissatisfied, and rest- 
less, who, when she was a girl, was always looking 
forward to some grand achievement. She thought 
she had talent, and her life-work was to be some- 
thing above what the “masses,” or the “common 
herd,” could accomplish. She had “aspirations.” 
She had “yearnings” after a great unattainable! 
I do n’t suppose the girl knew whether these yearn- 
ings were caused by the head, the heart, or by dys- 
pepsia. She read Emerson, Carlyle, and Kempis, 
it made very little difference to her which book 
she read, she understood one as well as she did the 
other. The “poetry” of the Bible she declared 
“beautiful.” 

Her aspirations were always the same — for 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


263 


nothing tangible, but something great — what some 
one else had done. She knew there was a sum- 
mit, and she wanted to be up there. She was 
created for that place. If she knew that the way- 
up was rugged, rough, and steep, she gave that no 
thought, for she did not intend to climb as others 
had climbed, but expected — if she ever thought 
about the matter at all — that some one would go 
before her, cast up the highway, and make the 
path pleasant, and on some charming day in June, 
a stylish friend would come and drive her up in 
her new coupe. 

She was the daughter of a poor widow who had 
given her all the wealth of schools, and we know 
what that means, as far as sacrifice on the moth- 
er’s part js concerned. The girl always thought 
of her life-work as being in the far-off future, and 
when it did come, it would find her in the parlor. 
Her mother delved in the kitchen. The girl mar- 
ried a poor man ; she does not see that it is her 
duty to help her husband any more than ’t was her 
duty to help her mother. She is still waiting in 
idleness for her work to come to her, and mourns 
because she is wasting her fragrance on the desert 
air. If some great good should fall to her, she 
would take it as a just reward — for her “aspira- 
tions,” I suppose. I do n’t know what else. 

There seems to us to be something ignoble in 


264 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


taking ‘‘pay” for work you have not done; in 
standing on a suramit which was not legitimately 
reached. We know that the spiritual gift is free; 
that we are saved by faith, but we know also that 
faith without works is dead. We know that the 
life of our great example was full of self-denial and 
self-sacrifice. 

We hear professing Christians talk about the 
compensation and the reward, wondering where 
others find so much “ sacrifice ” in the work. 
There always has been a class of Christians who, 
from Pisgah’s top, have looked down on the toiling 
ones beneath, and it looks to us sometimes as 
though they had the bliss and the delight there is 
in Christian living, while the ivorJcers in the Church 
plodded on wearily and hopelessly, hardly daring 
to look for a reward hereafter, much less thinking 
of getting it here as they journey heavenward. 

Is there a way, to the lovers of ease, whereby 
they can get into the kingdom by faith alone ? Is 
there a way to glory, by simply “believing?” 
Some way it seems, if there is, as though that kind 
of a “ glory ” is not worth the taking. Are we to 
be above our Master? Why, the only thing men- 
tioned against Dives was that he had fine clothes, 
fared sumptuously, and did n’t care very much 
about the poor. He loved self better than he did 
his neighbor. That was all. 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


265 


Very few of us will have those chances of self- 
sacrifice which the world applauds, but do not the 
little duties that are next before us, if well per- 
formed, outweigh the few mighty acts in the life 
of the world’s hero? 

It is simply the opportunity and not the person 
that makes the world’s hero. AVe confess it would 
be much easier to go to heaven in a few grand 
flights, than to be continually taking the little 
steps thitherward. To be a Christian in the little 
things of life ; in witnessing the departure of your 
best umbrella, or a favorite book in the hands of 
a smiling, but notoriously careless friend ; to smile 
when you find the button gone from the neck of 
the shirt when you have only five minutes to catch 
the train; to keep the lips closed when the hus- 
band comes from business tired and worried, and 
frets at the children, kicks the cat, and grumbles 
about the supper; to make a dress all with your 
own tired fingers, put it on hoping the husband 
will think once more of the time when the slight- 
est change in your toilet called forth a shower of 
compliments, and find he never notices but it is 
the same you have worn for the last seven years ; 
to bring home a new dress for the wife and have 
her accept it with, “For me! 0, what horrid 
taste men have!” to make a set of shirts for the 
husband, and with almost infinite patience endeavor 


266 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


to make them perfectly in every respect, and have 
him say, as he each and every time puts on the 
whole twelve, until they are worn out, “ ’T is so 
strange a woman never can make a decently fitting 
shirt;” to burn the face and break the back to 
have fried chicken and apple dumplings for din- 
ner, and hear the placid expression of wonder 
“why ive can never have stufied fowls and plum 
puddings ! ” to sit all the eveniug, after a hard day 
of toil at the ironing table, or in caring for the 
children, rocking the cradle and mending socks 
until ten o’clock, and when the husband comes in 
from a delightful lecture, meet him with a smiling 
countenance. Yes, to be a Christian in all such 

‘f 

circumstances requires the piety of the old mar- 
tyrs — nothing'modern can be compared wdth it. 

But this is the kind of piety w^e want if we 
are ever to reach the summit. It is only a per- 
fect step at a time. It is only to be clean and 
strong, and real. 

I like that word, “real.” All my sisters know 
the comfort there is in having “ the real,” and do 
we not also know the comfort there is in being 
“the real?” To know one’s own self to feel sure, 
and also to feel sure and glad, too, that God 
knows that we are real — that we are genuine to 
the heart’s core — the satisfaction of knowing that 
we are doing our work all well, “ both the seen 


THE NEXT D UTY. 


267 


and the unseen,” is a satisfaction inexpressibly 
great. 

But there are those who are, all their lives, 
trying to scour their pewter and pass it off for 
silver. They never do a perfectly independent 
action, from the selection of their place of worship 
to the making of the commonest garment. They 
never ask, “ Is this right? ” but, “ What will they 
say?” They actually stand in fear of Mrs. Leo 
and Mrs. Parvenu. “What will they think if I 
go to the old church on Union Street?” “I 
would n’t have her know I turned the dress for 
the world ! ” “It will not do to live on Thomas 
Street, if it is a mile nearer James’s office, because 
Mrs. Leo says ‘ such common people are moving 
there.” “ It will not do to have Evelina Sophronia 
take music lessons of Miss Johns, if she is the best 
teacher in the city, because Mrs. Parvenu’s Celestia 
Cecilia is learning of Signor Ivresse.” 

It seems as though, if these poor, imitation souls, 
who never get one particle of real, solid pleasure 
in this life, go on this way until they reach heaven’s 
gate, they will not then dare go in until they 
look around, and Mrs. Parvenu or Mrs. Leo says 
the company is sufficiently select. 

There is no thought so comforting to the Chris- 
tian as this — no one but God can tell me my duty, 
no one but God can tell you your duty. We must 


268 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


all seek the wisdom for ourselves. No one can 
translate your paragraph for you, no one can solve 
my problems for me. I have no key for your 
text-book, and you have no key for mine. We 
must all study our own lesson ; you must render 
your paragraph correctly, and I must reason out 
my problem. I have never studied from your 
text-book, and you have never studied from mine. 
I am no linguist, you are no mathematician. I 
can give you my rules from Euclid, and you can 
give me yours from the grammar; but, alas! 
neither helps the other. In the intellectual, the 
moral, and the spiritual world, our experiences 
must be unlike. In Church, in society, and in 
state, I am not to be you, nor you to try and be 
I. Because you have this, or do not have that, is 
no reason I should or should not have the same. 
We must all live our own lives, and each answer 
at last for his own self. We must work our own 
salvation, and not another’s. 

We are happiest if we cheerfully work in the 
space given us to work in ; if we all work upon 
our own embroidery frame. If I use your worsteds 
I get the wrong colors for the design ; if I copy 
your design my worsteds do not match. God 
gives out our work to us day by day — design and 
material. It is in pieces, like the camel’s-hair 
shawls. The little piece we have to do to-day does 


THE NEXT DUTY. 


269 


not seem to us to be either pretty or desirable, but 
we will do the work “ all well,” and when all our 
pieces are done the Master can put them together — 
and let us pray that it will be a perfect w'hole. 

Do you think that the work is so given out 
that it is impossible to make a good design with 
such material — Church-going and dish-washing, 
Sunday and Monday ? Does it seem as though the 
pattern must be sadly lacking in beauty and sym- 
metry because we rise from our knees, where we 
have been on the mount, to clean the potatoes for 
dinner? We come from our closet devotions, and 
put a patch on the sleeves of Eddie’s jacket; w^e 
lay down Fletcher or JMadame Guyon, and enter- 
tain the stupidest of acquaintances. But it puz- 
zles the wisest to know which acts are the most 
devotional, which most approved of God — which 
threads, which stitches, made the finest embroidery. 

God gives us our work. It is not for us to say 
what it shall be. Our part is to do the -work just 
as he gives it. To use the thread, to take the 
stitch, to finish this little piece — never two alike — 
and tlien take the next. That is all. It is God’s 
work to put it together. 


FINIS. 




I 


t 



* 


I 



4 


« 






$ 


V 











« 




* 


I 

1 » 






► 







0 


I 


I 




» 


4 


4 


I 




I 





1 




/ 






» 



r•^‘ 


« 


4 • 


* t 





k^A' 




f 





I , - ■■ 










*r 




* f 


1 .' 


.* • . 


►“ •• 



• 

♦ 


♦ » 

* *• 

' >* 

«' 



y ' 

' 

• •-* ■>'■ 
.r. . - (.-# • 


• 

- *•' . 

4 

i- V 

; 

,1 ' 





j ; 


• w 


r » 


L* 



■ ->/ H . 


•,^V-^' • .V ■'. Vf 

'-•■;■ .-rVi -', 


, Ct >^ 


•r 


V / 






» « 


' I 








■*1 >/'■ '.> 


'. . 






• . • a ' , ' » rf » V »!■ 

' -■iw 


■ .' ' i 


• • 


r ■- '-jW '''J 

, ''ir 

. . • .i . .••• '•. 




^■j _ 


c ,- 1 




' i 


^lyj ^ / • 


r; 






i-' - '/ 

■> % • » 

•y. >. ♦ •? 


'.r 


e • 


‘ti 


* r 






- t. 


■* - 1 


I I 

% • 


i' 







